


Dear God, He's Gone and Done It

by shortstakk79



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 01:38:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 56,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4121491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortstakk79/pseuds/shortstakk79
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is it possible that the unshakable Sherlock Holmes has fallen in love with someone other than himself? Regular characters, plus a few I've created and tossed on the pile. Forgive me if some things sound 'off'....American writing British characters....but then with the background of my OC, hopefully it will work in my favor. Be gentle. :D</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue:

The woman lay, possibly dying in the street, bleeding profusely from the wound to her abdomen. A weak laugh came from her lips as John tried to staunch the flow of blood. 

“Oh God! I didn’t even see it.”

Mary was on the phone, demanding that an ambulance immediately be sent to their location. Mycroft was on the phone demanding an APB on the assailant. Sherlock, although doing his best to aid John, was lost in his own thoughts about the turn of events from the evening. 

“See what?” John questioned as Sherlock passed him another length of his own shirt sleeve.

“I’ve been bloody jealous…No pun intended.” She coughed as she laughed.

“Please don’t exert yourself Barbary. You’ll need every ounce you’ve got to last until the ambulance gets here.” 

“Oh John,’ she said rather breathlessly. “John, I’ve been so damned jealous all this time.”

“Of what.”

“Of Mary….Of Mary…Of you both. Take care of her won’t you? Of course you will, you’re you….’ Barbary answered her own question. 

Turning her weakening gaze on to Sherlock, ‘Make sure they take care of each other. Don’t let them waste all that.”

“Why have you been jealous of us both, hmmm?” John was asking to keep her talking while he still worked to stop or, at this point, slow the bleeding.

“You’ve both got something I always wanted.” Her eyes closed for just a moment too long.

“What’s that?”

“Hmmm?” she was trying to figure out what his question referred to.

“What is it that you are so jealous of us for?”

“Oh. Just….you…both have each other. I’ve always wondered what it was like to have someone that truly loved you no matter what. I’ve never had anybody that cared. Mary’s my only friend, take care of her please.” 

She was weakening further, but still pleading that Mary should be taken care of. 

Sherlock, usually stoic, reserved, narcissistic Sherlock, couldn’t see through…Did he actually have tears in his eyes? He wiped at them with his ungloved hand. He hadn’t cried over anything since he was a child, least of all a woman. And most anyone would tell you that the only woman he had ever professed any love for was Irene. And even then, it wasn't so much professing love as it was stating obvious admiration for the fact that she seemed to be equally as intelligent as him; she intrigued him, he admired her, that was about the extent of his feelings for her…But could he have actually fallen under this woman’s cunning spell after all? 

“Oh, look at you…’ she lifted her left hand to Sherlock’s face; her fingers becoming cold to the touch. He leaned his cheek into the palm of her hand, if only to warm her little hand a bit. 

“Look at you my dear, sweet, lost boy.” She rubbed his cheek with her thumb. 

“I knew the moment I saw you that you would cause me pain. And now, here we are. Don’t feel bad. It’s my own fault really. You were just my weakness. You were tall and handsome and every word out of your mouth was music to my ears…you could have been reading the phone book for what I cared…” 

She coughed harder this time, blood coming from her mouth, her breath sounding sort of wheezy. 

“Barbary, the ambulance is just here. I can hear the sirens. Come, we’re getting you to hospital…” Sherlock was doing his best, and failing, at sounding positive about the ambulance being close by. 

“I’m not gonna make it. John knows that. But it was worth every drop of blood to get you to look at me that way, even once.” Finally, a tear slid down her cheek, running down the side of her neck, finally landing on the ground. Her breathing became shallower, almost to the point of stopping all together.


	2. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary has been trying to take an interest in a local theater group to occupy her free time; only fair since John has the work he does with Sherlock. John and Sherlock meet one of Mary's friends from the theater, Barbary. We start seeing that Sherlock's attitude towards feelings and emotions aren't quite as rock solid as he would like to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to warn my readers....I am an American....I'm not sure how en pointe some of my terminology and other things will be for British/Euro readers....I'm trying. And besides...Barbary was born in America (British mother, American father) and has moved around a lot it seems....So she slides in and out of whatever character she needs to play at any given moment. Hopefully I'm doing alright.

**Four months earlier….

Mary was dressed in Tudor style garb enacting a scene from a play that she and her theater troupe had been working on; opening night was only two more days away. They were putting on a version of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. Mary’s dress was a lovely shade of dark green velvet with gold filigree work embroidered into the entire length. She happened to glance around when one of the doors at the top of the isle opened and she saw her husband, John, and his friend come in. She gave John a brief, almost shy, smile as he took a seat near the middle of theater; far enough away not to disturb the actors and the director as they worked. Sherlock sat down beside him, too wrapped up in whatever text war he was in with Lestrade to notice anything much about the goings on in front of him. John looked to his left, seeing Sherlock engrossed with his current tirade and just shook his head as he turned his attention back to admiring his wife; soon he found the rapid-fire texting from Sherlock to be wholly distracting…that damned little light kept popping on the phone’s screen. 

Nudging his friend, ‘Seriously. Do you mind?”

“It’s Shakespeare, we know how it ends.”

“Yes. But, this is Mary. And I am trying to be a supportive husband, but I find myself being distracted as of late. Could you please…”

Sherlock received yet another text from Lestrade; John had enough. He grabbed Sherlock’s phone and smashed it on the ground to keep it from lighting up again. 

“There. Now you don’t have to worry about what he has to say.” John gave Sherlock a smile that dared him to argue. Sherlock merely bit his lips together and stared straight ahead to the stage.

His gaze became fixed on one of the other actresses that was a part of Mary’s group. 

She was slightly shorter than Mary, maybe by 2 inches, she was perhaps 120 lbs, she had a figure that was made all the more exaggerated by the Tudor style dress that she had on. Her hair was long, it fell in large soft curls around her shoulders and down to her hips; the top and sides had been pulled back with an intricate braid. Her dress was a shade of vermillion that set the colors of her skin and hair off rather well. Her skin once he got on the subject was of a pale cast. Sherlock didn’t do ‘cheesy’, but even he would have to insist that she looked like a life sized porcelain doll; against her pale skin, what he could see of them, her lips were very nearly a perfect Cupid’s Bow and of a lovely dark rosy pink color. Her cheeks looked slightly flushed from all the activity on the stage. He watched as one of her male co-stars wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, sweeping her off of her feet momentarily, spinning around in a circle with her…he watched her laugh out loud as he came to a stop, placing her back on her feet. 

Sherlock was puzzled as to why he would have the sudden urge to amputate the poor man’s hands and arms; he shrugged it off. Sherlock Holmes didn’t catch feelings like that, he was a cerebral sort of man, feelings were for ordinary people…people like John and Mary, although over time Mary had proved to be anything but ordinary. 

Soon it seemed as though the director was ending this particular rehearsal and the actors began dispersing to go their separate ways. That same man from before leaned over and quietly whispered something to the young woman into her ear at which she blushed an even deeper shade than before; but whatever she thought, it didn’t stop her from shooting that man a saucy, even devilish grin in response. 

Yet again, Sherlock had the urge to maim the man…perhaps cut out his tongue…or gouging out the eyes. Sherlock shook his head to dispel whatever the hell that was. He watched the woman walk over to the director; she was telling him something about the costume she was wearing. Judging by her hand gestures, she was letting him know that the dress was a bit too long..still…and that it needed to be adjusted before opening night to avoid any unnecessary accidents. The director smiled and nodded his head, apparently promising to have it taken care of quickly. With that assurance, the woman seemed happy, so she made her way off stage, likely to change into her real clothes, much to the dismay of one Sherlock Holmes. 

John had in the meantime had stood up and wanted to leave the row of seats and make his way closer to the stage so he could collect his wife when she made her way out of the dressing rooms; he had tried numerous times to get Sherlock’s attention, failing miserably. Finally, he nudged him stoutly to rouse him from whatever his thoughts were. Sherlock merely looked up at John like he was the one with issues. 

“I’d like to go collect Mary if you don’t mind. What’s your problem anyway? When we first came in you could care less about the play.”

“Oh you know. I have a great appreciation for Shakespeare.”

“Yeah. It wouldn’t have anything to do with that little brunette would it?”

“Shut up and go get that wife of yours.” Sherlock barely cut his eyes over to his one friend. 

John had to do his best to stifle the laughter that bubbled within; his eyes danced in merriment. 

John and Sherlock had managed to make their way to the front row about the time that Mary was coming back from the dressing room, her bag slung over her shoulder; she was talking with her friend, the one that   
had caught Sherlock’s attention so tightly. The other young woman had changed from her dramatic red gown and was now in a pair of jeans that she probably had to be poured into and a t-shirt with cap sleeves   
that fit her like a glove; the shirt was a shade of purple that Sherlock was sure he would never forget. The neckline had one of those v-necks that almost look like it had been cut in with a razor blade…..but not by   
the wearer; it looked to be the sort of thing she would have bought that way. The front of the t-shirt said something trite about ‘Does Not Play Well With Others’. Her jeans were long enough they engulfed the boots   
that were on her feet; she was nearly walking the hem off of the legs. She must have had whatever gear she brought with her in the messenger bag that was carelessly resting on one hip. 

Suddenly, Sherlock couldn’t help but be jealous of that damned bag. Again, three times now, he had to shake the thought out of his head quickly. 

She had some ear phones resting around her neck; not the little insipid ear buds that everyone else sported these days, but the sort of ear phones that covered the whole ear and blocked out any other sound from   
entering or escaping. She was listening to some rap song actually; it sounded as though it was a Jay-Z song…but Sherlock couldn’t be sure exactly, he wasn’t up on much pop culture, but he would have to take   
John’s word for it. But she did seem to be doing some version of a dance move inspired by the beat while laughing at something that Mary was saying. It seemed as though the reason this woman hadn’t put her   
headphones on completely was because she had been busy taking the braid out and shaking the rest of her hair lose. 

Sherlock was trying to figure out where his voice was at; he wanted to tell her how good she had looked with her hair pulled back in the braid. But he couldn’t; she was even better without the braid, he couldn’t   
come up with the words to say. 

Finally, Mary was close enough to John and Sherlock that the men could catch the tail end of the conversation between the two women. 

“Barbary, I want you to meet my husband, John.”

The young woman turned her music off and took the headphones off completely stowing them quickly in her bag to give her new acquaintance some respect. 

“Oh, so you’re John. Mary talks about you all the time.”

“Really? She does?”

“All of it is good, so I’d like to believe it’s true. And might I say that she left out the part about you being completely adorable.” At this John began to redden in the cheeks a bit; now it was Sherlock’s turn to try to   
hold back his own laughter. John ribbed him good with his elbow. 

“And this is his…friend…They work together. Sherlock Holmes.”

“Mary’s told me a bit about you as well.” 

“Oh dear…”

“It’s not as bad as that is it? Here, read this to me and we’ll call it even.” The woman had reached into her bag and brought out a copy of War and Peace, handing him the book. He took the book, looking at it   
strangely, perplexed.

“Barbary, you’re awful actually. Boys, this is my friend Barbary.” Mary finally made the final introductions, shaking her head at how quickly the smaller woman had been able to leave the great Sherlock Holmes   
speechless. Mary had only rarely seen this happen and not so rapidly.

“So Barbary, would you care to join us for a bite of dinner? We’re going to the place just up the street.”

“I don’t know…I should probably…” For a second she looked like she was going to decline, suddenly feeling out of place among the three friends. 

“Yes! I mean you should come. With us…you should come with us.” Sherlock almost never stuttered or tripped over his words. Mary and John shared a conspiratorial smile. This was too good to let it go. 

Before she could give a definitive answer that man from earlier that was quickly becoming Sherlock’s nemesis (unbeknownst to the poor man) had come from the changing rooms and wrapped an arm around the   
woman’s neck. 

“So doll, you wanna come out with me tonight?”

“Thank you. But…no. Mary has already invited me to dinner with her and her husband John, and their friend. Maybe another night.” She was nodding as she finished her sentence as if to signal to the man that she   
was done discussing it at which time the man simply shrugged and walked away. 

“Does he not take hints?” Barbary mumbled to Mary as the man made his way to the exit. “So, Mr. Holmes, shall we go then?” She turned to him, arching a brow as she waited for his response. 

Sherlock merely held out an arm for her to take and he began walking behind Mary and John as this woman…this Barbary…fell into step beside him. Sherlock couldn’t help but notice that the top of Barbary’s head   
barely made it to his shoulder if it even made it at all. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Even though the night held a slight chill in the air, it had been a great night for a walk to the little café where the foursome had decided to grab their meal. Not even five minutes into the walk, the group stopped   
long enough to allow Barbary to pull her jacket from her bag; she had been having such a good time making Sherlock squirm that she forgot all about it before. Sherlock held her bag for her while she pulled the coat on and buckled it in place, watching her….every move she made. 

The longer they walked, Sherlock noticed that her hands still seemed to be cold and that she was still shaking a bit from the weather. He offered her his coat; at first she declined, but he insisted, eventually winning   
the argument. It couldn’t possibly be the penetrating blue eyes and that deep voice with the lovely English accent….Nah!!! Probably not. 

Mary and John couldn’t help but giggle among themselves when they saw this; Sherlock was every bit of 6’1. Barbary was only about 5’3, maybe 5’4 if you squint your eyes just right. Once she had Sherlock’s coat   
wrapped warmly around her, she had to almost hold it up at the pockets to keep from tripping over the tail of it. Luckily, Sherlock tended to dress in layers most of the time during the fall and winter, so he wasn’t   
too bad off without his trusty trench coat. 

Altogether the walk hadn’t taken longer than maybe fifteen minutes; when the group walked into the small café, the operator looked up from what she was doing and smiled, seeing her friend Mary coming   
through the door. 

“I see you’ve brought John,’ the woman nodded to the shorter, blonde man. “Sherlock.”

“Paige.” Sherlock’s greeting was full of an equal amount of what seemed to be disdain. 

At the sight of Sherlock, the woman merely rolled her eyes. And then she saw Mary’s other friend, “Barbary, so good to see you again. Will you be ‘aving the usual?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. That’s why I love you best of all.” 

The others placed their orders before taking their seats. When Paige saw that Barbary was wearing Sherlock’s coat. 

‘But why? It’s not like Sherlock is chivalrous….he’s barely even nice to anyone.’ Paige thought to herself as she got the orders ready for their table. She decided she would have to keep an eye on things, and maybe   
even threaten Sherlock’s life if he stepped out of bounds this time. Barbary was a good woman. Sure, she was tough. She could kill a man in a matter of seconds if the situation was right. But Barbary was also one of   
the most kind-hearted people Paige knew. She loved to joke around and have a good time. Most people would never know how deeply Barbary was scarred; she would never tell them. Of course, Sherlock is just the sort of man that would figure almost everything out with just one or two glances and Barbary would have to say barely a word. But then again, that fact might actually get on Barbary’s nerves. Sherlock was smart, insanely intelligent in his way. But he was nearly inept with his interactions with others, save for Mary and John…God knows they’d tried over the years to turn him into something more human. Paige didn’t mind if   
Sherlock was able to read Barbary like a book; somebody had to be able to do it if they were ever to figure out who she really was beyond the façade that she let everyone see. Paige’s only wish was that, while he was learning all about this girl, Sherlock practiced a little tact and self-restraint. As she thought, Paige turned her attention to making sure she had Barbary’s fish and chips coming out just right. That girl loved her fish and chips…sometimes Paige wondered if she ever ate anything else. She smiled as she heard Barbary laughing wholeheartedly at something that John had said; it was some story about a case that Sherlock had worked on and John’s retelling of it and the animation on his face must have been top shelf. Paige hadn’t heard Barbary laugh that way in a long time. It was nice. 

“I still don’t understand why you gave me ‘War and Peace’”

“Well…sometime I will have to come over to your place, or you can come over to mine, and you will read it to me. I’ll help you figure out the rest.” 

Paige could hear Sherlock trying to formulate a sentence, but he was failing so epically. And when she turned and saw the look on his face….Priceless. She knew, when she first met Barbary, she would like this girl.   
And, she was right. She watched as Sherlock was practically spellbound watching Barbary pull her hair back into a sloppy bun to keep the long locks out of her way as she ate. She shook her head quietly…I don’t   
know who I feel sorrier for.

Sherlock was just sitting there staring at Barbary like she was one of the great mysteries of the universe. He wasn’t far off course; she was damned difficult to figure out sometimes. 

Paige got the orders together for their table and walked over to distribute them, making sure that she left the vinegar with Barbary just in case she didn’t drown the food with enough of it to begin with. As she   
stepped away to go back to her counter, Paige noticed the exact moment when it finally clicked in Sherlock’s brain just exactly what Barbary was on about with this whole ‘reading’ thing. And Paige had never seen   
that man turn so red. Barbary merely smiled at him and winked before taking a bite out of her fish. 

“Oh my God, Paige….this is freaking amazing. I love you!” Paige smiled. She knew that if it was really good Barbary would start swaying from side to side in her chair as she ate. It was an unconscious thing that she   
did all the time when she ate something that was particularly good….it was funny to watch. 

Seeing the red shade still present in Sherlock’s normally pale complexion, ‘Barbary, Mary is right. You really are awful.”

Barbary grumbled and wrinkled her brow at her, ‘You don’t have to tell everybody.”

Paige left the food on the table and allowed the four of them to enjoy their time together; she hoped she’d get to see more of Sherlock being put in his place, especially from the firecracker that was Barbary. But, at   
the same time, she was sort of glad that it seemed that Barbary had met someone who could stand up to her if needs be. That girl could run right over you given the chance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Outside of the little café it had started to rain; since it was chilly outside, the rain coupled with the warmth inside the café caused the windows to fog slightly around the edges. The foursome had picked a table   
close to one of the large windows….apparently Barbary loved the London weather, rain or shine. She was an odd bird. 

As the four of them sat and laughed at the conversation (mainly consisting of Mary and John finding it splendid that Sherlock and Barbary seemed so evenly matched) none of them happened to notice the man   
standing across the street in the black leather jacket. He had no umbrella, no hat…he was only wearing that leather biker’s jacket and black jeans with combat boots on his feet. Anyone who walked near enough to   
him to ask him if he was alright or needed help soon learned to back away. He was seething with anger and perhaps even pure hatred. His focus was solely on the small figure sitting closest to the window in the flame red cargo jacket with the animated face. 

It had taken him years to find her. She had put him through more than one level of hell trying to locate her. The agency wanted her dealt with. They had wanted her neutralized years ago, but she disappeared into the throngs of Istanbul. And just when he got close enough to almost smell her perfume on the wind, she relocated to Marrakesh. Bouncing around those two cities, she was damned invisible, even to someone as well trained as he was. She favored the native inhabitants so closely in many cases; and as pale skinned as she was, when she did get some sun, her skin had a tendency to take on an olive pallor.

Not only that, but, she spoke several languages fluently; not only English, but Arabic, French, Greek…she had a working knowledge of the Turkish language. And what she didn’t know for sure she could make it up. She could go anywhere and disappear. He was surprised he didn’t have to track her over half of continental Europe to finally get to her. Something must require her to come out of hiding. He would take his time to find out what that something might be; after all, it could be beneficial to his own work. 

All this stranger knew was that, this time, failure was not an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I pick names for certain characters (such as Barbary) that might have sort of a difficult back-story or whatever, I tend to look up the meanings behind various names to try to find the right one that conveys something about the nature of the character, etc. The information that I found on the name 'Barbary' was that it supposedly means 'Stranger'....when you read further and find out more about her, the name will make sense I hope.


	3. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock walks Barbary home.

“No, really Barbary, how did you meet Mary?” John had an amused look on his face. 

“I was new in town; I had lived in Scotland for a short time…very short, though I did like it there. I didn’t know anybody in town. I went to a launderette or whatever you call them here. There was a notice hanging in the window that they needed some people to help in the local theatre. I wasn’t sure about it. I…sometimes I....Well, it was a great way to try to get to know people, so I decided to give it a chance. The worst that could happen was that I wouldn’t like it and would have to find a new hobby. 

But getting to play dress up and pretending to be somebody else for a couple of hours a day was sort of intriguing I suppose. I mean, who doesn’t want to be somebody else, have a different life, if only for a day?   
I couldn’t get my eye make-up just right for this one play we were going to do. And Mary came over to help me out. She told me how wonderful she thought my eyes were. It was one of the nicest things anybody had ever said to me.”

With that she continued to eat her fish and chips, thinking that was the end of it. 

Sherlock had never stopped watching her, barely even touching his own food, and saw her body language and the look on her face as she described her first meeting with Mary. Finally, something he could latch onto.

“You have a problem with large groups of people.” It was more a statement than a question; coming from Sherlock…he’s not the type to ask anything after all.

“Yeah, sometimes I do. I was an only child, sometimes growing up was sort of lonely and boring.”

“Lonely maybe, but I doubt it was boring.” 

“What are you implying…sir?” Barbary had asked staring Sherlock down, not breaking eye contact for once. If anything, Sherlock was impressed she had even attempted the eye contact; she had been avoiding it, or skirting the issue since he and John were introduced. But, then again, Sherlock was never one to shy away from a staring contest either. But, looking into Barbary’s eyes just now, Sherlock could tell that there was something….She was challenging him to say another word about it. 

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I just find it doubtful that anyone like you could have been boring.” He even tossed in a wink to try to throw her off a little bit. 

Barbary smiled at him, the smile breaking across her face slowly, ‘Awww, thanks. That was awfully nice of you to say.”

After a few more bites of food, it seemed as though Barbary was reaching her limit, pushing her plate away from her and settling back against her seat. 

Barbary sat and talked with Mary, John, and Sherlock for a few more minutes before deciding she needed to call it a night. 

“Oh, I can call you a cab.” Mary offered.

“Thank you, but I think I’m going to walk. I don’t live so terribly far; I should be alright.”

“Bar, it’s been raining for quite some time; almost since we first came in.”

“Well, damn. I hadn’t bothered to notice. I was enjoying the company so much I guess. No matter, I have a hood on my jacket. And you know I always pack a small umbrella in my bag. I’ll still be alright.”

Strangely enough, Sherlock needed no prompting, ‘I can walk with you. I mean, if you’d like.”

Barbary stopped and sort of looked at him, squinting one eye as if she was trying to look straight through him to see what he was really after. 

“I mean, I’m basically done eating anyway. It would, I think make us all feel better knowing you got home in one piece.”

“Well, alright. Since you put it that way, I don’t want Mary worrying for sure. Come on then. Mary, I’ll see you at the next rehearsal.”

“If not before.” Mary looked at her sideways with a grin on her face. Barbary didn’t see it, but Sherlock gave Mary the side eye as well as if to ask her without speaking just what she thought she was up to. Mary   
winked at them both as they walked out into the rainy London weather.

“Come, Sherlock. It’s only about a ten minute walk from here.”

Sherlock held out an elbow for her to take his arm as they walked and she smiled up at his efforts at being a gentleman, shaking her head, yet taking the offered arm. With his free hand, Sherlock carried the   
umbrella over their heads; carrying it this way caused Barbary to have to lean closer to be able to stay dry at all…a calculated move on Sherlock’s part. She didn’t seem to argue; this caused a bit of a rueful smile to   
pull the corners of Sherlock’s lips up. 

Sure enough, not more than ten minutes later, they arrived at a building that looked as though it had once been a warehouse of some sort; from the outside it still had a very industrial feel. 

“Come on detective man; let’s get in out of all this rain.” 

They walked into the building. Sherlock was pleasantly surprised by the interior thus far. 

The floor was sealed concrete, with large, mansion sized rugs at various intervals to denote sitting areas, etc. There was a concierge desk with a bank of security monitors to one side. There were chandeliers that   
hung from above. But they were not the usual over blown non-sense that you usually see, although that they were still attractive; they were in keeping with the industrial feel of the building. 

“Hello poppet.” The security guard and apartment concierge rang in unison. 

“Boys….’ Barbary winked at them before going over to the desk. “Do I have any messages?”

“Not right now, we’ll let you know.”

“You have a canoe back there.”

“Too right this rain….”Phillip, the guard replied.

“Well, then…I’ll see the two of you later.”

“Regular card game tomorrow night?” Edward, the concierge asked.

“Play that by ear. I don’t know what I will be up to. But, you and the rest of the boys should still get together….a pint for me then.” 

“Always doll.” 

With that Barbary finally led Sherlock to the elevator to lead him to her flat. The elevator looked like it would have been a freight elevator at one time. 

The ride up to the fourth floor took only a matter of a couple of minutes. 

“I’ll warn you, it’s small…my place. But, I think you’ll like it.” 

With that Barbary opened the door and ushered Sherlock in. She was right. This place looked like Sherlock’s version of heaven. Almost every available wall was lined with book cases which were crammed with   
books on every subject; many of them were about ancient civilizations…Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc. There were a few about the history of Great Britain and continental Europe. There were pictures in frames dotted   
around on some of the shelves and the tables of numerous places she seemed to have visited over the years. This place had a world traveler vibe to it. There was a large bank of windows in the reception area   
behind the enormous sectional sofa that looked out over the river; you could even see Big Ben and the area of Westminster Palace. This was a view that most people would kill for. The flat would have qualified as a   
studio, a large studio, but a studio nonetheless had it not been for the sleeping area. Over where the bed was…the bed took up almost the entire little space, it was a queen-size after all. On either wall at the foot   
and head of the bed there were shelves, four on each end, high enough she wouldn’t hit her head when she sat up, that wasn’t saying much at all, she was so small. There was a wall that was built just beyond the   
bed that formed a bit of a doorway that led to the living area. There were drapes that hung on either side of the doorway to soften the edges a bit; they were of a Middle Eastern pattern and design. The top of the walls didn’t meet the ceiling, there was about a foot, maybe two, between the top of the wall and the ceiling, allowing for air circulation.  
Sherlock was so deep in thought examining the apartment…tunnel vision and all. He was broken out of his thoughts when he heard her small voice.

“So is it up to your standards?” Barbary had this impish smile on her face. 

“It’ll do.” Sherlock gave a wry smile of his own. 

“Pig.” She gave a snort of laughter. “If you want something to drink, I have a few beers…tea…” she pulled a cord that opened a drape that covered a make shift pantry, the shelves of which were mostly covered with   
non-perishables and a copious selection of teas from around the world. 

“You do hot tea?” 

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” 

“I didn’t think Americans were into that sort of thing.”

“Who said I was American?” 

“Your accent was muddled like someone who was trying their best to sound British. I’m sorry, I assumed…” The look he gave her though held no such apology. He knew what he was talking about.

“I’ve lived in many different places, sometimes for several years at a time. I tend to pick up languages and accents quickly. It’s not a problem. What sort of tea do you prefer? I usually leave some of the Indian style   
and the Moroccan teas for in the morning. They’re a little high octane, you’ll be up this time next week cleaning your house if you drink those now.” 

Sherlock walked over to the kitchen and stood looking at the selection. He noticed that, for herself, Barbary picked a Jasmine tea. 

Seeing that he noticed her choice, ‘I love the smell of it, and it doesn’t taste too shabby either.” 

She set about making her own tea, ‘How do you take yours, I can go ahead and get it ready.”

“I can…”

“Oh my friend, you don’t seem the type to trouble yourself about the kitchen. How do you take your tea?” 

Sherlock told her and she nodded and told him to go have a seat in the living room. As the kettle of water finished boiling, she got the tray with the tea service stacked and grabbed a little something for a snack.   
She wasn’t hungry, but sometimes when she got nervous she nibbled. And, right now she could eat the tires off of a double decker bus. She had never brought strangers back to her place, let alone men. And Sherlock was both, a stranger and a man. And then there was the whole point of him being Sherlock. Yes, she was highly attracted to him…give her a few minutes and she would name 4 out of 5 of their future children. But, she was pretty sure he had caught her in that lie about not being American. She was American by birth as it turns out. But it was the gospel truth when she said that she had lived in various places all over the world….at least she hadn’t lied about that…and she did tend to catch onto languages and accents quite quickly. Perhaps he would let that slide out of the kindness of his heart. A girl could wish. 

“Ok, go ahead and sit there, enjoy your tea. I’m going to change, I think, and get out of these clothes.” 

After noticing the look on his face change ever so slightly, Barbary turned to walk towards the bedroom…smiling to herself, knowing that he couldn’t see her. 

“Oh and don’t peek how ‘bout it.” She tossed over her shoulder a bit as she continued on her way. Once she got over to where her room was she reached for the one wall and pulled. There was a hidden pocket door that she could shut; the door was made out of steel oddly enough, and it was a ‘reclaimed’ object that showed its age. 

Not more than two or three minutes later, she emerged in her pajamas with her hair combed out. Sherlock did his best not to choke to death on his biscuit when he saw her, but he couldn’t help the slight cough nonetheless. She was wearing a screaming red camisole top and some small shorts and her feet were bare….

Sitting down next to Sherlock on the sofa, she patted him on the back, ‘Chew baby, don’t want you dying on me yet.” She couldn’t stifle the small giggle that seemed to bubble up.

Recovering himself, ‘I see you don’t have a TV.”

“Yeah, there’s nothing but garbage on it half the time anyway. I can read a newspaper. Besides, if there is something newsworthy that either hasn’t been printed yet, or won’t be printed due to the contents of the story, I can still get updates…I know people. And, sometimes, after a busy day around town, I just like to come back to peace and quiet. It allows me to think clearly.” 

This could be Sherlock’s dream woman….he couldn’t help but look at her in an odd manner. 

“Does this make me strange?” 

“Not at all.” He smiled at her politely. 

“Well, look….You are welcome to stay here if you like. I know it’s God awful late and crappy weather, and it’s probably quite a distance to your place…I don’t have anything for you to wear, but...I can let you sleep in   
there,’ nodding towards where her bed was. “I’d say you could have the couch, but the bed is bigger, and you are sort of tall. It might be more comfortable if you..”

Noticing she had started rambling, ‘Who is in the picture on the mantel?”

“I don’t know; that frame came with the place. I just never took it down. The woman is so pretty, and it’s such a nice picture, I left it up.” 

Another lie, and Sherlock knew it. He noted to the sadness in her eyes as she looked to the picture in question. It was very likely a picture of Barbary, or whoever she was, with her mother…a mother that was likely deceased and had been for a very long time. Odds are the death was a violent one or was in some way traumatic to Barbary as a child and she just preferred to not speak of it. 

“Sorry, just being a bit nosy. It’s a habit.”

“So I’ve heard.”

They bantered back and forth like this for a long time, even to the point of Sherlock asking Barbary if she really expected him to read ‘War and Peace’ to her out loud. She seemed adamant about this. 

At some point an hour or two later the conversation began to die down, Sherlock was explaining something and then asked Barbary a question. He received no answer. Looking down, he realized she had managed   
to fall asleep, curled against his right side, her head resting against his chest, her left arm slung around his waist slightly. Moreover, he realized he had subconsciously wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to them as they talked. As he sat there and mulled this over, he thought about her offer to stay. It would be rude of him to just leave and for her to wake up alone, especially after she had been quite good to him, allowing him in for tea and conversation. After thinking for a moment longer, he managed to maneuver a way to stand up without disturbing her very much and made his way to her facilities.   
Once he had washed his face and taken care of business, he came back out into the living room and scooped her off of the sofa and took her over to the bed. Setting her down and pulling the covers up for her, he noticed the chandelier. Inside her little sleeping nook it looked like Paris threw up. It didn’t surprise him in the least. The rest of her flat was covered in objects that she had gathered in her travels; he would have been shocked if Paris had been left out. On the shelves that surrounded the bed there were pictures of her in Paris as well as other cities around the world, as well as knick knacks of various sorts….a statue of   
Ganesh and one of Shiva, were among these. 

As he stood to leave the room and go sleep on the couch he pulled away from her. As he turned to go her hand shot out and grabbed his wrist; he noted that her fingers could not close completely around it. 

In her slumber she managed to mumble to him. 

“Don’t leave.”


	4. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Barbary share a bed. This is mostly a chapter where Sherlock studies Barbary, now that she's still and quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Wanted to warn those who haven't already noticed a pattern with my work (this story and the Criminal Minds stories that I have been working on) that most of my OC's have 'difficult' backgrounds (to say the least)....so a lot of times their moods tend to switch back and forth. One minute they might be flirty or almost sort of jovial, but then something crosses their minds (be it a smell that sends a memory or a sound, whatever) and it causes them to become unsure of themselves or the world around them. 
> 
> I don't know if other people are like that when they go through things but, I know that is how I have felt over the years.
> 
> 2\. The bit about Sherlock blinking rapidly (you'll get to it)....I had in mind the scene out of 'The Sign of Three' when John breaks the news to Sherlock that he wants him to be his best man at the wedding, and Sherlock just blinks so fast because he's trying to process the information...I just thought that was freaking adorable, so I might have borrowed the idea behind that for this chapter. 
> 
> Smooches.

Her voice had been small and sort of weak due to her sleeping but that did not mean that it lacked anything as far as emotions go. 

It was the saddest sound Sherlock could remember hearing….ever. 

He quietly promised her that he was coming back; he walked over to the sofa and removed his jacket, laying it across the arm of the sofa. Next, he did exactly as he promised; although he couldn’t figure out quite why. He was not a man given to emotions and sentiment. But, he had been acting strangely since he first laid eyes on her, so why should this be any different? He sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off his shoes.  
With the rest of his clothes still on, Sherlock crawled under the covers, pulling them up under his arms and rolling over on his side to face her. She was watching him to make sure that he came back. As he got comfortable (or as comfortable as an anti-social, high-functioning sociopath can get when he is so close to a woman that is seriously impairing his judgment) she snuggled up against him, resting her face against his chest, much the way she had while they had been sitting on the sofa. Her left hand curled around the lapel of his shirt. It seemed as if Barbary intended to keep him close to her. ‘For the love of God!’ Sherlock couldn’t understand why his body was agreeing with her. He watched her carefully as her eyes fluttered shut, almost against her own will. It was as though she was afraid he would be gone when she opened them again; but she must have been completely exhausted, because she eventually lost the fight to hold them open. He began watching her sleep. 

He knew for a fact she was in her late 30’s, maybe even pushing 40, like him; although she looked at least 10 years younger (if not 15) than she really was. In this state of repose she looked so young, so completely relaxed. Ever since he had first laid eyes on her she’d been a whirlwind. She was always dancing around (like when he saw her coming through the theatre after changing), or getting swung around by others, as the case may be, or just clowning around in general. As gorgeous as Sherlock might have thought she was, she was never still long enough to really just look at her. He couldn’t really enjoy taking her in. Now though, Sherlock could take his time and really take everything in. And he discovered that, even though she might be close in height to Molly, Mary, and the Woman, she was still of a smaller frame than them. That was not to say she was necessarily any lighter weight than them…she may be perfectly in sync where that is concerned; but her bone structure seemed smaller or more delicate (if that was even possible). He couldn’t get enough of staring at her face; the shape of her eyes that had been such a deep brown….and the shape of her lips (not to mention the most wonderful rosy shade of pink that they were)….a definite cupid’s bow, the bottom lip being the fuller of the two. The way a few strands of hair draped across her left cheek before falling across her neck….A neck that was on the short side compared to some of her female counterparts. 

The more he studied her neck and the length of it, the more his eyes started to wander. For a woman of her height and small stature she was rather well endowed. Her breasts actually bordered close to the edge of being too big to suit her frame. But, Sherlock knew they were original, so she hadn’t had any ‘after-market’ work done; that was a refreshing thought. In today’s world women were so quick to tamper with what they had naturally. In most cases it was a shame, a damned shame; that a woman, any woman would allow simple propaganda get to them that much that they had to change nearly everything about the way that they looked. Sherlock at times didn’t know whether to laugh at them out right or pity them. 

Beyond Babary’s breasts, Sherlock couldn’t make many deductions just now; the covers…they….well they were covering up so very much. This only served to irritate him more as the minutes ticked slowly by. But he had gotten a decent look at her before they went to bed. And he had to say that her back end was about as ample as the front had been and that her waist was small….not outrageously slim, because then she really would look like a cartoon character. But with everything else she had going on, adding in her waist size, she was an over-exaggerated hour glass. And that pale skin; Sherlock would wager that it was something close to alabaster, if he was the romantic sort that thought such things. But he didn’t dare ask John to give his opinion; not at the risk of giving away his own thoughts. The short, shapely legs that led the way to what Sherlock would assume to be a fabulous ass; although, Sherlock was a man that did not like to make assumptions, but just this once…..

Soon enough Sherlock was scolding himself; he had to stop thinking about her legs and how well he’d fit between them…..And where the hell did that come from? 

He knew, without a shadow of a doubt that, if he made it through the night in one piece, he would have to work on keeping his distance from her. She threw off his entire….everything…his mind palace was going to be in complete disarray. He couldn’t concentrate on it long enough to stop thinking about every inch of the body that was currently so very close to his. 

Sherlock held no grand delusions. He knew that everybody thought he was this asexual....John would say he was an asexual dickhead. Sherlock had heard John call him a dickhead on more than one occasion. He wasn’t though….asexual….the part about being a dickhead….well…sometimes….Most of the times…OK! OK! When I’m awake. He had bedded plenty of women over the years; not an obscene amount, but enough that it would likely make his dear Watson blush…OK, perhaps it bordered on obscene. But, in his own little way Sherlock was a tad old-fashioned….Or would it be smug? He just didn’t think he had to go around and talk about every woman he had taken to bed. Just because you brag about being so good in bed doesn’t mean that you actually are anyway, it just means that you try….a lot…..and bragging just makes you sound a tad desperate. But, if you were to ask any of the women that had joined in on a little extra-curricular fun with Sherlock, you would find out that he was NOT lacking in any fathomable department. He was tall enough with an athletic build. He was rather well endowed according to over three-quarters of the women that he had been with. And between being the king of the ‘Mind Fuck’ and actually knowing what he was doing with a woman, Sherlock could write a book on what to do in bed. Or on the kitchen table….the shower…his chair. As that last thought crossed his mind, he made a mental note to invite Barbary around to Baker Street. He’d just have to make sure that Mrs. Hudson was off on some holiday with one of her friends, as well as seeing to it that John and Mary were nowhere in the vicinity of London. And that Mycroft and his parents were wherever in the hell they would possibly be….preferably no less than twelve hours away from London in any direction. Oh, Sherlock was sure he was going to besmirch Mycroft’s good name and that it would likely happen in the sitting room at 221B Baker Street. The God awful things that would happen at Baker Street….we would scandalize the entire neighborhood….With his free hand, the one not currently wrapped around Barbary’s waist, he smacked himself in the forehead to try to break these thoughts that raged in his head loose. 

“Why are you hitting yourself?” 

Sherlock heard a sleepy voice ask; looking down at Barbary, he saw her watching him closely.

“I forgot to mention something to John about a case that we are working on.”

“Liar; you’ve been watching me.”

“You’re supposed to be sleeping.”

“Not a denial, but classic avoidance. I felt your eyes on me. I know what you want.”

“How could you possibly…”

“You were thinking so hard, I could almost hear it. You want to do positively filthy things don’t you? And, at Baker Street no less. Poor Mrs. Hudson…the shame of it. You better promise her a nice holiday.” 

Sherlock just stared at her like she was psychic, blinking his eyes rather rapidly, unsure of how to respond to that. He was saved from having to say a word when Barbary sat up in the bed and proceeded to straddle   
his waist, unbuttoning his shirt. 

As she leaned over to kiss him or completely drag all of the remaining air out of his lungs, whichever came first, Sherlock couldn’t help the question.

“I thought you were tired?” 

“Ssssh. Save your breath, you’re going to need it. If you wanted to do such lurid things, all you had to do was ask.”


	5. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some extracurricular activities take place. An older brother starts sniffing around.

With that she officially fried the circuit board of Sherlock’s brain. The kiss….no THE KISS….much like ‘The Woman’..... That was all he could call it. It wasn’t A KISS….it was THE KISS. In the same way that Irene Adler wasn’t A WOMAN but THE WOMAN. And, as she began her work, she ground against his hips suggestively. Sherlock thought he would die; surely whatever he just felt was the onset of a massive heart-attack. But that had been positively a tremor compared to what it felt like when her hands touched his now bare chest. 

For once in his life, Sherlock couldn’t understand something…and it scared the shit out of him. As many women as he had been with over the years, and as skilled as he was with them in the bed or out he could not figure out for the sake of his own life, how this tiny woman was able to do this to him. And the hell of it was neither one of them was completely naked yet, nor had they even done anything overtly sexual….just that blasted kiss…the one that hit him like a brick of C-4. If Sherlock was a big believer in God he would be asking for some kind of divine intervention right now. 

Yes, he wanted just this very thing….to be able to do all of these positively filthy things as she had called them….and to start tonight was even better. But, he had not planned for the contingency that she would actually be able to read his mind so damned closely. 

Barbary kept grinding against him and unfastening the buttons on his shirt as she tugged it free from his trousers; every once in a while he would feel her cool hands graze his skin…and Sherlock felt like he was incinerating. She made some kind of whispered observation about the six-pack that she hadn’t been expecting from him (she seemed pretty pleased to have been proven wrong). Pretty soon, the only thought process that his brain allowed him was to wrap his hands around her hips and help her grind against him as he began slowly working her camisole top up her ribcage. But she stopped him before he could completely rid her of it.

Grabbing his hands and pinning them by his head, but gently, ‘No, leave it.” 

The shake of her head accompanied by the look in her eye told him not to ask questions. 

She began to crawl off of him; something about her demeanor had changed suddenly. 

“This was a bad idea…I shouldn’t have….” 

He stopped her, grabbing her hips again, rolling her under him; this time he ground down against her hip.

“It was a bloody marvelous idea, actually.” This time he gave her a return kiss that he only hoped matched the one that she had hit him with. 

“I want to see everything…” he reached for the hem of her camisole top again, sliding it up as he went. He was going to try as hard as he ever had for anything in his life….he had a feeling Barbary naked was a sight that was not to be missed. 

“Sh-Sherlock….” She had stuttered and when she grabbed one of his wrists again, her hand had been shaking. 

“I want to see you,’ he nuzzled at her right ear, causing her to draw her shoulder up closer to her head as she giggled. 

“That tickles,’ she kept giggling, a bubbling sound that made him smile. He would do that 1,000 times if it would keep her mind off of what he was trying to do. 

When he kept trying to raise her shirt, she scooted up into a sitting position at the head board. She ran her right hand through her hair and down over her chest to rest it against her left shoulder. She had a look on her face that told him she had something on her mind. 

“What is it Barbary?” 

She shook her head, apparently deciding it was easier to just acquiesce to his wishes than to give voice to whatever was going on in her head. 

To try and lighten her mood a bit Sherlock nuzzled that place by her ear again, chuckling deeply when she drew up in a fit of giggles again. 

“You wicked little man.” 

As Sherlock pulled her back under him, he ground against her once more. 

“Does that feel like it will be little?” 

“I’m a horrible judge of size, prove it.” There was a dare in her eyes. Sherlock merely grabbed one of her wrists and lead her hand down to his crotch and pressed it to him until she took over. As he returned to his previous work, he nibbled on her right earlobe and she began using both hands to unfasten his trousers, sliding a hand inside. Once she had her hand inside of his trousers and pants she wrapped said hand around him, squeezing it snuggly as she stroked him. 

“Now who is wicked, little woman?” Sherlock managed to groan out.

Finally, Barbary seemed distracted enough that Sherlock was able to slide her top off, leaving her quite naked now. He had to stop and stare for a second. He was right about his deduction. Barbary naked was worth the struggle. 

“I never said that I wasn’t. You persistent little devil.” The last word was nearly lost as he suddenly latched on to her left nipple, sucking hard. And at that moment Sherlock wasn’t sure if she meant she knew she was wicked or that she knew she was worth the struggle; it would be so like her to read his mind apparently.

Barbary’s hands went into Sherlock’s hair, her finger nails scraping slightly over his scalp before gripping his hair a little tightly causing him to shudder a bit. He slid one hand between their bodies and slipped a finger into her while he pinched her other nipple with his free hand. 

“Sh-Sherlock.” She had stuttered his name again, but this time not from any kind of fear. Oh no, he could tell the difference. Currently, she was agreeable to everything he was doing to her body; his fingers kept pumping in and out of her. Barbary wanted to buck up against him and was only marginally successful; his weight held her down. 

“Sherlock, please…” it hadn’t taken him as long as he thought it would to get her to the point of begging. He couldn’t help the smug smile that lit up his face; he was only thankful that she had her eyes shut at the moment or it might have gone badly for him. She seemed like the kind of woman that could and would quickly turn the tables on him. Before he got her any closer to the edge, he removed his fingers from her body and stopped sucking on her nipple; at the loss of contact, Barbary gave a groan of discontent which was cut short when she felt his tongue flicking inside of her where his fingers had just been. As he continued lapping at her, he tossed both of her legs over his shoulder and kept going. When he wasn’t using his tongue to flick inside of her, he would press his mouth to her and suck at her clit with the same force as he had before on her nipple.

“Oh my God! Sherlock!” without his weight holding her down, she managed to sit up, folding her body in half, pressing her hands behind her to watch what he was doing to her body. 

Oh, his little minx was flexible. This should prove interesting at a later time. 

“Lie back down, I’m not done yet.” he smirked at her and pushed her back down onto the pillows. He went back to the work of flicking his tongue inside of her and sucking on her clit, occasionally he would add two fingers into the mix. 

“Please. Sherlock! I need to c….” Sherlock had already known he had driven her too close to the edge. Before she was ever able to finish her sentence, he sucked her clit back into his mouth and grazed his teeth against it ever so carefully. There was a slightly raspy scream that came from her mouth that sounded vaguely like his name. Sherlock didn’t stop his work until he had licked her clean. 

She had her head turned to the side, watching him with lazy eyes. Barbary reached for him and went to wrap her hand around him again, only to have him swat it away. 

“But….” She looked confused. 

“There will be plenty of time for that later. Trust me. I have been picturing doing just that very thing all evening, since I first met you. But, you will sleep now. We can pick this up later, after we’ve rested.” 

“But I wanna….” 

Sherlock had been slipping out of his trousers and his pants so they were equally nude; only seemed fair. 

“After we sleep.” He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose before lying on his back and pulling her to him, allowing her head to rest against his chest. She didn’t bother to argue any further; looking down, he saw that it had less to do with the fact that he had actually won the argument, as it did with the fact that she was already asleep against him, an arm slung around his waist. 

As he pulled the cover over them, Sherlock couldn’t help but think about the way he had been acting since he first met Barbary just a couple of hours ago. He knew he was in dangerous, uncharted territory. Not because of inexperience in the sex department. No; the trouble for him was the way that he *felt* for this woman. Sherlock was not a man given to feelings. He wasn’t like ordinary people; he didn’t do feelings and sentiment. That was John’s department. But, damn if he didn’t feel like an ordinary man with feelings and sentiments at just this moment. This could either make him or kill him; it would take him some time to figure it all out. These were the thoughts that ran through his mind as he closed his eyes and gave himself over to sleep as well.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Three hours later Sherlock jerked awake abruptly. There was a panicked scream; it came from Barbary. He looked over….Sometime in the last three hours during their sleep they had changed positions slightly. Now, Sherlock was lying on his side, an arm slung around Barbary’s waist, his chin resting on top of her head, and she was lying on her back. 

Since letting out her scream and waking him up, he could see she seemed to be struggling against some unknown, unseen assailant. She was still asleep but in the throes of a horrible nightmare. Suddenly, as if whatever it was that she fought against left her, she sat straight up screaming again, shoving the covers and Sherlock’s arm away from her. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, she had been terrified. 

Once she seemed to get herself under some control, she realized she was naked. For a second she seemed to not understand why; looking around slightly, she saw Sherlock in the bed beside her. He raised a hand to place it on her shoulder; but she jumped out of the bed, snatching the sheet as she went and raced away from the bed to lean against the wall. 

As she leaned against the wall, she kept the sheet wrapped around her clutching at her chest and leaning over slightly like she was trying to catch her breath. Her heart beat just wouldn’t slow down from hammering in her chest. 

“Are you alright? Do you need any help?”

“I’m fine. It’s just….these bloody nightmares. If you don’t want to stay….”

“I’m not leaving. Come back to bed.”

“I usually can’t go back to sleep after…”

“You don’t have to sleep if you don’t want to, but just come back and rest.” Sherlock squinted at her almost like he dared her to argue. 

Barbary couldn’t bring herself to argue at all. Nodding her head, she followed him back over to where her bed was; he crawled in first and she was right behind him. As she began to turn over on her side, facing away from him, Sherlock grabbed her and pulled her to him, pulling her to rest on top of him, her head on his chest. 

“As I said, you don’t have to sleep if you don’t want to. But you should at least try it.”

“Yeah yeah….” 

As he stroked her hair, Barbary asked him about some of the cases he had worked on recently. Sherlock was pretty sure it was a blatant attempt to make him keep talking. It seemed as though she thought his voice   
was sexy. Once he had puzzled out some of her earlier behavior, he realized what the copy of War and Peace was for; it still brought a smile to his face to think about it. 

As Sherlock described some of the recent cases he had closed for Scotland Yard, he thought more about how he was behaving with her. He was so far out of his comfort zone that he was in another galaxy altogether. 

He didn’t do feelings, he rarely ever did sex; and yet here he was, having sex with a woman that he barely knew and caring enough about her to want to help her when she had a nightmare. For a second it felt so surreal that he could have sworn that he and John had switched bodies. But there was something about this girl. He couldn’t explain it. He wrapped his arms around her tighter, stroking her hair, listening to her breathing since it had finally levelled out. 

He wondered what her nightmares were about. What was she hiding? She was American; he knew that much for a fact. That picture on her mantle was of her with her mother when she was a child. Her mother had died when she was quite young. He had yet to see any images of her father. Was he the cause of the nightmares or was there something else altogether?   
As he drifted back off to sleep he resolved to bounce these ideas off of John tomorrow and see what they could come up with.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Down at the concierge desk, Phillip and Edward were watching the monitors closely. They had caught some activity on one of the cameras that aimed at the outside perimeter of the building. From the view of that one particular camera they saw a darkly dressed man standing in the pouring rain watching the building from across the street. They could make out very many details about his appearance, but the fact that he seemed to be dressed all in black or at least dark colored clothes and purposefully staying far enough out range of the cameras bothered them. 

After looking at each other for a brief second and seemingly conveying their thoughts to one another, Edward picked up his mobile and placed a call. 

“I trust you have news for me.”

“Sir, there seems to be someone lurking about the place. We can’t make out a description except for dark clothes and out of close range of the cameras, like he knows where they are at. Phillip told me he thought he saw the man light a cigarette. We didn’t know if you had placed someone else on her; I wanted to be cautious.” 

“Some men will be sent around to deal with it. Now, if you wouldn’t mind serving my curiosity…”

“Anything you like, sir.” 

“Is my brother with her?”


	6. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after. Mycroft over-steps and gets put in his place.

“Yes. As a matter of fact he is Master Holmes. He went up with her hours ago.”   
Without breaking stride, Mycroft walked through the front door, breaking the call with the men at the desk. 

“Oh, whoever was outside a moment ago seems to have dashed off when he saw the car approach. Our people are on his trail though.”

“What brings you out on a night like tonight, Master Holmes?” Phillip asked in his most respectful tone, which wasn’t saying much. Mycroft Holmes might be their superior, but Phillip and Edward both had a healthy loathing of the man. 

“I’m here to remedy the idea of my brother being with our agent.”

Edward came flying out from behind the desk, accompanied by Phillip, ‘You hurt our Poppet and we hurt you.”

“I. Own. You. Both of you.” Mycroft’s entitled sneer was planted firmly on his face. 

Phillip stepped forward, ‘You own your suit and that pompous umbrella. You do not, however own us.”

“Is that so?” 

“We joined MI-6 voluntarily. You and the powers that be accepted our requests to join based on our skill sets. We were trained quite well. All of these things are true. But, if push comes to shove, more of us will   
back her than you.” 

“Are you sure about that, Edward?”

“Let me tell you something Master Holmes every agent that we have, that would take our side in an act of disobedience could turn in their government issued weaponry and their agency identifications and we would still have enough of a private armory stashed at an undisclosed location, and enough manpower to use it, that we could topple your entire beloved British government in twelve hours….If we were so inclined.” 

“I am the British government.”

“Twelve hours Master Holmes….”

“Or less, depending on how charitable we were feeling.” Phillip spat out. 

“Very well. Since I don’t want civil unrest all over my brother’s activities….Goodnight gentlemen.”

With that, Mycroft Holmes left as suddenly as he came, climbing back into his insanely expensive car. He still resolved to drive a wedge between his dear brother and his agent. This just wouldn’t do. Most of the men that found themselves in Barbary’s bed had an alarming tendency to wind up dead….usually dispatched by the lady herself; never mind the fact that it was typically over the course of some case that she had been sent on, the fact still remained she was a fatal piece of work. Of course he understood clearly that if that wedge fell between Sherlock and Barbary that it would have to come from Sherlock’s lips and not his own.   
Mycroft did not like very well the idea of an all-out mutiny by three quarters of his roster. He knew very well what the odds were against him. And considering that so very many of them had prior military ties before coming to the agency….he wasn’t even sure they would be able to count on Her Majesty’s best; they’d likely defect. He knew when he and his men scraped her off of the streets of Marrakesh that she would become a force to be reckoned with. It seemed as if now was the time.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Hours later, as sunlight poured through the window in Barbary’s sleeping nook, there was an infernal knocking at the door to her flat. Sherlock sat up trying to determine if the sound that he was hearing was real or if he had merely been dreaming it. In the meantime, Barbary sat up slightly behind him; her hair was sleep rumpled, cascading in unruly tangles over her shoulder as she held a sheet carefully to her chest, and letting out a gasp. 

Sherlock turned to her and really couldn’t speak for a second. Her brown hair was ablaze of gold with subtle, barely noticeable natural red highlights; even her dark eyes glowed as gold in sunlight that was currently filtering over the London skyline; even her skin which was near to alabaster took on a golden glow. Dear God, now I’m writing poetry! Damn you Shakespeare!

“What time is it?” She spoke quickly. 

Glancing at the watch on his wrist, ‘A little after 8 a.m. Why? 

“Damn! I have a meeting.” Grabbing the sheet and wrapping it around her, Barbary jumped down out of bed and scampered off to the bathroom to catch a shower. Not even fifteen minutes later, she came back out with a towel wrapped around her body, and her hair hanging down her back, stopping just past her rear-end in damp waves. 

“Go get some clothes on Sherlock, but use the other room. I have to get dressed.”

“I’ve seen it all already.” 

“I don’t have time to argue. Please, Sherlock, go get dressed.”

“A meeting?” 

“Yeah, a work thing. It’s what normal people do….they work…because they have to eat and pay rent. It’s dull stuff I swear. But, it’ll be my ass if I’m much later than I am now. Hurry, go now.”

Barbary had tossed much of Sherlock’s clothes to him and he made his way into her bathroom to change as she had asked. Once she was dressed she came and knocked on the door to make sure he was decent. 

Sherlock opened the door; he was still naked from the waist up, not having the time to put his shirt back on yet. 

“I hate morning meetings.” Barbary stomped her foot like a toddler would and had the most adorable pout on her face. “It’s so not fair. We should still be in the bed. By all rights it was your turn.” 

Sherlock stifled a bit of a chuckle as she came waltzing into the bathroom and nudging him over a bit so they could share the sink as they brushed their teeth. He noticed she nearly had to stand on her tip-toes to   
see her reflection in the mirror; and the sink itself did come up quite high on the waist compared to some others he had encountered. 

“You could always call in and say you were sick.”

“I wish. You have no idea what my boss is like. He would never go for that.”

“We should get him together with my brother….lock them both in a room to fight it out and see who wins.” 

“Maybe.” Barbary smiled. She almost gave everything away then and there. But she couldn’t. 

Mycroft was counting on her. He had assigned her to keep Sherlock alive; he was getting himself into more and more trouble these days. And, he had just been recently acquisitioned to help investigate a human trafficking ring. Those bastards were Barbary’s specialty. She’d taken down her fair share of them over the years. But, Sherlock was getting too close now; the powers that were in charge of this particular ring were about to strike. She could only guess what this meeting was about. Barbary wished all of this would just come to a head so she could get back to her ‘normal’ life. Having to be this close to Sherlock was killing her. She had always had a thing for him, at least from a distance. She read and kept every newspaper article she could get her hands on about him. She was even privy to John’s blog. The little that she knew of Sherlock, she absolutely worshiped the man. Sure, Mary had warned her that he could be an insufferable ass, this is true. But, none of that mattered to Barbary. She just loved him. She couldn’t have explained it to somebody without sounding totally out of her mind, but she did. Mary understood. Mary loved John the same way for the longest time. Oh, she still loved him….likely would until the day they died. But, before they were married, and before John found out that Mary had such a secret life before him….Mary loved him because he never judged her, he just loved her back. Everything he did for her, he did solely to make her happy. Mary had never known anybody like John. But, still….Mary tried to warn Barbary about how Sherlock could be. Barbary didn’t care. She couldn’t care. 

Yes, Sherlock was strangely attractive with his angular features and almost cat-like eyes; never mind the color of said eyes being completely hypnotizing. And he was tall, quite a bit taller than her; but that wasn’t altogether unheard of, she was only about 5’3 or 5’4. And he had those hypnotic eyes and that dark hair, and a voice like liquid sex; and then there was his accent. His build was lean enough, but athletically muscular. From head to toe, Sherlock was almost physically perfect as far as she was concerned….and quite well endowed. Barbary had managed to notice that last night even if they didn’t get around to doing anything about it. She felt like shouting a loud ‘You’re Welcome’ to the universe for that observation. 

But, his physical attributes had very little to do with why Barbary found herself completely stupid over one Sherlock Holmes. No. It was the simple fact that Sherlock Holmes was likely the only human being on the face of the planet who would ever be able to see *her*; not just Barbary the assassin or secret agent. But, he would be able to see who she used to be. Since she was a girl she had been a ghost. She had no real identity, just the one that Mycroft supplied her with. She barely remembered much about her old life. She knew that her father was a monster; her mother had allegedly drunk herself to death when Barbary was quite small and left her alone with her father. But, a lot of the years after that were sort of a blur. She remembers being afraid to go to sleep in her own bed, and then….she lived in a lot of different countries over the next few years after that. She couldn’t remember ever going to school. She was kept a prisoner by one person or other for so many years. When Mycroft Holmes scraped her off of the streets of Morocco Barbary could neither read nor write to any degree. She didn’t even remember her real name and she wasn’t too certain of what her age was. Mycroft gave her a new identity. He gave her the name Barbary which meant ‘Stranger’ because that was what she was, a stranger, even to herself. He had her properly educated with private tutors; she had been a sponge. It didn’t take her long to learn what she needed to know. Once she had been taught how to read and write at all, she took that gift and ran with it. She became a voracious reader, anything she could get her hands on. 

Then Mycroft asked her to become one of his agents. She, of course, said yes. Barbary owed Mycroft Holmes everything she had. 

But, from the time that she had been a small child, she had no identity of her own. For sake of argument, she was a ghost. Nobody ever paid much attention to her, she blended into her surroundings; the only time that anyone ever took notice of her was when it was too late and they were in her cross-hairs. The other agents knew of her, most of them respected and feared her in equal measure. Even if they all socialized at agency meetings, she didn’t really see any of them socially outside of work. She had never had any friends that she could remember; she had no idea what it was like to have other people in her life. She lived for her work. She was good at it. It cost her a little bit of herself most times; you don’t want to know the things she had to do to get close to some of her targets. The men that she let use her just so she could get close enough so she could kill them and make damned certain they were dead. With each passing case that she was assigned, what was left of her was being stolen away, until she felt like the mythical Echo; pretty soon all that would be left of her would be her voice.

Sherlock was the only person that she knew of that could even come close to giving her any part of her life back. It was a fact. He had deduced at some point that she was American by birth; a fact that she did her best to deny, hopefully sounding believable. But she knew if she really let him, he would be able to tell her nearly everything that was lost, or enough of it that the gaps that were left would make sense. For so long, that’s all she wanted….to know who she was and where she belonged. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt any love from another human being, not truly. Her children didn’t count. Most children love their parents unconditionally, unless something truly horrible happens to change that. She worshipped her children, all six of them; and she hoped and prayed every day that she was a good enough mom to them that they could, in their own way, love her back. 

No, she couldn’t be late for this meeting. Being summoned to see the great wizard made her stomach hurt every time; she always wondered what Mycroft was up to. She knew she had her usual assignment of looking out for Sherlock; that was a given. But, in the meantime, what would he put her up to? What other fresh hell would she have to walk into? What new version of Satan would she have to cozy up to and dispatch? She was so sick of men, at least the wrong kind of men, putting their hands on her she could vomit. But it came with the job. 

“Come on Sherlock. We have to go.” 

Sherlock noticed her voice sounded worried. Was her boss really as bad as all that? 

Without another thought, Sherlock made sure he had himself together and followed her as they walked out of her flat. She waited with him as he hailed a cab. 

“Tell Mary and John that I had a great time. It was wonderful getting to meet you after having heard Mary talk about you so much. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”

“Definitely. There’s so much more I have to learn about you. And maybe start on ‘War and Peace’.”

Barbary, seeing the wink Sherlock shot her as he got into the cab, ‘You wicked little devil.”

She couldn’t help but giggle at the way his face scrunched up slightly at her calling him little again. As soon as the taxi pulled away from the curb, an expensive black car pulled into its place. 

“You’re late. Get in.” 

“Top o’the morning to you as well Mycroft.”

The car ride was silent. Mycroft wasn’t even looking at her; he made no idle gossip with her as they went. Mycroft admittedly wasn’t a chatty sort of person; he didn’t get on well with others. But, at least with her, he seemed to fall into a sort of routine. If he wasn’t in the mood to be his usual ‘charming’ self, then she must be in some sort of trouble. This made her stomach tie itself in tighter knots than before. Barbary just wanted it out in the open. 

“What the hell have I done now?” 

“I assigned you to guard my brother. I don’t remember giving you permission to fornicate with him.”

Mycroft’s words were clipped and to the point. 

*Well, at least it’s out in the open now.*

“Permission? Excuse me?”

“I am still your boss am I not?” 

“You may be right about that. You may be superior to me as far as our chosen professions go. I will not argue with you there. But, I am still a grown ass woman, I am not a child.”

“Yes. And if Sherlock wants you in his bed, you’ll go to him; just like you have done with all of the others. Isn’t that right?” Mycroft seemed so smug it was rolling off of him in waves. He would throw it up in her face. 

In that moment Barbary saw red. There was a rage that overtook her that she had rarely felt in her life.

She didn’t even realize that she had slapped Mycroft that hard until she noticed that the car had come to a halt and she saw the look of utter disbelief in his face, and his hand was against the cheek that was still   
stinging.

“Go fuck yourself Mycroft Holmes!” With that she jumped out of the car and took off running down the road. Mycroft jumped out of the car as well and watched as she ran; even if he was the type of man to give chase, he would never be able to catch her. There might be cameras every few feet on the streets of London, and Mycroft may have access to them all, but Barbary knew where there were no cameras; she knew where she could go and drop off of the grid for a few days and there wasn’t too much of anything that Mycroft could do about it. 

She ran as far as she could for as long as she could until she made it to her favorite place. She made it to the roof of the building and stared across the river at Big Ben. When everything else in life went all to hell and stopped making sense, she could always rely on that damned clock. She loved Big Ben; he was one of the few constants in her life. The sounds of the chimes were comforting to her. Although right now, she was so ashamed of her life and the things she had to do to survive. She backed herself up against a wall and slid down, still managing to watch some of the taller buildings of the London skyline. She watched them all afternoon. Come evening, she was still sitting there, her knees curled to her chest, her arms and jacket wrapped around her legs, hugging them. She had been crying for hours. All the work she had done for Her Majesty’s Secret Service, all the times she had put her body and mind on the line….and that was all Mycroft thought of her. Even now, thinking about it, made her cry even harder. 

This is how she fell asleep, sobbing her eyes out, watching the London skyline as the city lights came on and darkness fell over the land


	7. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very sick Barbary is taken to the hospital and disappears.

He couldn’t believe how lucky he had gotten. The bitch had wondered off of the radar. He had noticed the black car pick her up. He also noticed it didn’t get more than a few meters away before it came to a sudden stop and she jumped out. He watched her run down the street. Not caring about the black car further, he gave chase. He wouldn’t attack yet; no, he needed to gather intel. He needed to know the places she frequented, how often she had people with her…..after he followed her for about a week, he felt as though he would know everything of any importance to his work. 

He saw her enter one building in particular; he entered into one across the street from it and raced up the stairs. He made it to the roof of his building of choice around the same time as she made it to the roof of hers. It took him a second to get his bearings, but once he located where she was exactly he took out a camera with a ‘peeping tom’ lens. He zoomed in as close as he dared to take pictures; he would study them to learn what he could about what her frame of mind was as she sat up there. It could be useful information to have when he finally took her down. 

He was just damned glad the weather dried up a bit; he was getting awful tired of the English weather…..getting tired of all the damned rain and having to nearly backstroke to get to his destinations.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Sherlock had just come off of a case that Lestrade had sent him on; it was perhaps an eight, if you squinted just right. For all that it was a decent case, it still didn’t take long to wrap up, and not as long as John had previously thought it would. Sherlock had scarcely bothered to notice that it had been several days since the last time he had thought of or heard from Barbary. It didn’t mean anything; but the notion still took him by surprise, he was usually the type that would notice a detail like this. At least, if you overlooked all the times he carried on a conversation with himself because he hadn’t bothered to realize that John had left the room; there was even a time that John had been able to go to Ireland for two days and Sherlock hadn’t even seemed to notice.

He picked up his phone and texted Barbary to ask her if she wanted to grab some fish and chips or if she would prefer the little Indian place that was between both her flat and 221B. Next, he decided to go about his latest experiment in the kitchen while he waited on John to get back from the market. 

An hour and a half later, John had been back for quite some time, even put some of his grocery items away, and was now sitting in his chair in front of the fire place. Sherlock was tying up a loose end with this little experiment and he happened to notice that Barbary hadn’t texted him back yet. John was watching him quietly; he saw the rather perturbed look that crossed Sherlock’s face. The man wasn’t used to being ignored.   
It was rather amusing to John. *Welcome to our world you git.* John picked up his newspaper in an effort to hide the smile that otherwise would have started an argument. 

Fifteen minutes or less into reading his paper, he and Sherlock both heard someone at the front door downstairs. Mrs. Hudson answered it; all seemed to be any other day until they heard Mrs. Hudson yell for them. 

“Boys another one!”

John jumped out of his chair, dropping his paper hastily, and racing down the stairs to hear Mrs. Hudson fretting over the person who had apparently collapsed in their entryway. Sherlock was much more composed; taking his time to saunter down the stairs at his own pace.

At least that was until he happened to catch a glimpse of who was crumpled in the floor; at the sight of Barbary lying in a heap on the floor, Sherlock jumped down the last four steps landing next to John. 

“Sherlock, we will have to get her upstairs. I will see what I can do until an ambulance gets here. Mrs. Hudson, call one for us please.”

Mrs. Hudson turned around and immediately went back into her flat and began to call for that ambulance. 

Meanwhile, John and Sherlock got Barbary back on her feet and began pulling her upstairs to their flat; she had a head wound and otherwise she didn’t look well either. 

Sherlock helped John get Barbary lying down on the sofa. John ran upstairs to his room and grabbed one of his medical bags; he still kept one here at the flat….it’s just good business when you are dealing with Sherlock. With a bit of gauze that had some antiseptic dabbed on it, he began to clean the gash on her head. It was only slightly bleeding now. Barbary was trying to push John away so she could tell him something. 

“Barbary, I am trying to get this gash cleaned so I can bandage it. What on earth happened anyway?”

Her eyes blinked slowly a time or two as she tried to gather her thoughts.

“I was coming here anyway. I wasn’t feeling well at all….haven’t been for a few days I guess….”

“Did you see who attacked you?” Sherlock’s baritone broke in.

“No, they got me from behind….I think.” 

“Sherlock, she’s burning up. Barbary, what have you been up to these last few days?”

“Thinking.”

“I’ve been trying to text you and you haven’t replied for days. What on earth could you be thinking about for that long?” 

“My boss is a real slave driver and I don’t think he appreciates me.” 

“What else are you thinking about?” John asked; he was really only trying to keep her talking until the ambulance got there, that head wound at least looked nasty….add that to the obvious fever….and he was really   
worried about her keeping conscious. 

She absently looked for Sherlock, not really seeing anything. 

“I have a splitting headache….” John couldn’t help but chuckle, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

“Sherlock?” Barbary wanted to make sure that he was paying attention.

“Yes?” 

The emergency workers could be heard coming up the stairs with the gurney. They quickly started working to get her strapped in. 

“Sherlock….” She started again. “They’re coming for you.” 

“Who is coming for me?” 

Barbary shut her eyes, as if trying to think, and keep her thoughts straight even though it was a struggle. John and Sherlock watched as two tears streaked down her cheeks. 

“They’re coming for you….that’s all he said when he hit me. They’re coming for you.” More tears spilled from her eyes in rapid succession. 

Sherlock demanded to be allowed to ride in the back of the ambulance with her, although John argued that he should be the one to ride in the back considering that he had medical training. In truth, this argument   
was all that stood between the EMTs and a violent confrontation with a very angry Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock knew that John would take care of Barbary and decided to back down. After the ambulance pulled away from the curb, Sherlock caught a cab gave instructions to the cabby to floor it to Bart’s. 

*Not going to Bart’s. We have been instructed to go to Royal London. Not sure what’s going on. JW*

“Driver, change of plans. I need to be taken to Royal London. Instructions are the same, do hurry.”

In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Barbary kept trying to talk to John even though the emergency workers kept trying to get a breathing mask onto her face. 

Finally, yanking the blasted mask away from her face, she reached out to John, grabbing his right arm.

“What is it Barbary?”

“They’re coming for him…”

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Her eyes were getting heavier.

“Barbary, who is coming after Sherlock?”

“I won’t let them get that close.” She was shaking her head in a negative manner, trying to impart to John that she would do whatever she had to do to ensure Sherlock’s safety before her eyes slid shut and did not   
open. John began to wonder if this was the delirium talking or if she was serious. He’d have to find out later. And more to the point, why were they redirected to Royal London instead of Bart’s? They were in the same family of hospitals. Both had rather good track rec…..Oh. Mycroft had to be behind this. If Mycroft was behind the rerouting of the ambulance, then what on earth….

Looking down at Barbary as the EMTs continued to work, he began to wonder what her possible connection to Mycroft could be. 

As it turns out, John would get no answers about whatever Barbary’s connection to Mycroft would be. The man didn’t put in an appearance at the hospital; at least not initially. 

Sherlock had been sitting by her bedside for hours until he got a text from Lestrade that there was a case that needed a moment of his time. Sherlock hadn’t wanted to leave. He was worried that whoever had attacked her would come back after her if they found out where she was being kept. And he was also still troubled by what she had said in the foyer of 221B. Somebody was going to come after him. Had she been beaten to send him a message? And if so, who was coming after him? There was the whole ‘Moriarty back from the dead’ thing; but he had been sort of quiet as of late.   
John finally talked Sherlock into leaving. Sherlock had said, after all that the case was likely only a four at best and wouldn’t take so very long; if that was the case he could solve it without John. And, if John stayed behind he could keep an eye on Barbary for Sherlock. Sherlock was even more persuaded to acquiesce when John lifted one side of his jacket to show that he had brought his gun with him; illegal a move as it was. Sherlock gave him a trademark smirk and rushed out to meet Lestrade after all. 

John took out his tablet and decided to check his email to see if there were any other possible cases that might become interesting in the near future. 

Ten minutes later he was brought out of his reading by the sound of a distinctive tapping on the hard tile of the hospital floor. He barely raised an eye but, John saw Mycroft quietly come into the room.

“My dear girl what have you gotten yourself into now?” Mycroft asked as he looked Barbary over from her bedside. 

“I take it you were responsible for rerouting the ambulance then?” John spoke without looking up from his tablet at first. 

“Yes. Quite. There are several medical professionals here that are on the payroll.”

“What is she to you?” 

Mycroft raised an eyebrow, ‘I merely noticed that she was someone that my brother took an interest in; that is all.”

“Really? And would you be interested in knowing what she said before she went down?”

He watched Mycroft’s face carefully, learning a little something from Sherlock after all this time. 

“When she first collapsed in the foyer at Baker Street she told us, she told Sherlock, that somebody was coming for him. She repeated it at least one other time after that. Then, when we were in the ambulance, she   
swore to me that she wouldn’t let “them” whoever they are get close enough to him to do him harm. That added to the fact that you don’t allow us to be taken to Bart’s, and you are here now. I will ask you again. Who. Is. She. To. You?” John almost bit out from between his teeth. “She is Mary’s friend from the theater. What does she have to do with you?”

“So she will be fine in a couple of days yes?”

“She also said that her boss is a slave driver and doesn’t appreciate her. What have you done to her Mycroft?”

“Let her know I will be in touch, yes.” It wasn’t a question….it was never a question with Mycroft. 

As he began to walk out of the door, Mycroft turned back and glanced to the woman in the bed.

“And for the record John, I have always appreciated her.”

With that the man had swept out of the hospital as dramatically as his brother, leaving John to think over the load of absolute nothing that he had learned. Barbary had to mean something to Mycroft, but what? He   
couldn’t bring this up to Sherlock right now. There was no way. If he brought this up in conversation without having better evidence than a hunch, Sherlock would berate him for not paying attention, for seeing and not observing. However, if he didn’t say anything, and something huge was to come out later….he would feel just awful. John had to weigh his feelings of possible future guilt over a certain berating for some perceived ignorance. He also knew that if he didn’t act completely natural around Sherlock, then he would deduce what was on his mind anyway. 

John watched Barbary’s face as she slept off the effects of the fever and the head wound. She just seemed to sleep right on. He went back to going through the emails as he had been doing before. After a few more minutes of this John couldn’t stay awake another moment more; he put away his tablet and rested his head against the back rest of the chair he was occupying. 

It seemed like no time at all before John was waking up to some sound coming from the direction of Barbary’s bed. He carefully looked up and realized that Barbary was having a nightmare. Her face was scrunched up and her breathing….it sounded as though she had been running a great distance. She was yelling ‘NO!’ to somebody…she began flailing her arms as if to push somebody off of her. And, then, in an instant it was over; she sat up with a scream. 

“Barbary, what is it?”

She was breathing deeply, trying so hard to calm herself. Her eyes were wild, as if there was a part of her brain still stuck in whatever nightmare it had produced. 

“Barbary, talk to me, please.”

She saw John’s face in front of her….John’s open, adorable face. She smiled at him weakly. 

“I’m better now.” Barbary nodded her head as if she was trying to make herself believe the words. 

“What happened?” 

“It’s nothing. I promise.” Barbary flopped back down onto the bed, finally able to catch her breath. “Sorry I woke you. You should go home to Mary.”

“I promised Sherlock I would stay until he returned. He should be back soon enough. He said the case was merely a four. Ordinarily, Sherlock doesn’t get out of bed for less than a seven, but he was already out, he figured it couldn’t hurt. I expect him back most any minute. Once he’s back, I will be returning to Mary; besides, Mary knows you’re here. If I left you unattended….I’m a little bit afraid of my wife. It’s a healthy fear,   
more like respecting her skill set really.”

“Oh. What skill set is that John?” Barbary asked innocently enough. In truth she wanted to find out what John knew about Mary’s former life….what had Mary told him? Not for any major reason. Barbary just wanted   
to see how Mary had balanced getting a normal life versus having been a trained agent and assassin. 

“Well she is a nurse, so she knows a thing or two about saving lives. But, that’s the thing….a lot of people who know how to save lives also know a few handy ways to take them as well; or at least it seems that way   
sometimes. And, you know Mary…”

“Yeah, she is a piece of work, that woman. I’m glad she has you John.” Barbary seemed almost a bit wistful or sad. “She’s been like a sister to me….I mean, since I came to London. I always hoped that she had a man kinda like you at home. It would be a waste for a woman like her to not have someone to care for and be cared for in return.”

They talked a little bit longer. Barbary was skilled player; telling John everything and nothing all at the same time. He would ask her a question, and she would answer with a comment that sounded fabricated even to his own ears; Sherlock would likely congratulate him on finally developing that sense at least. Eventually, Barbary fell back to sleep; John seemed to think she might have just the right idea, he dozed off shortly after she did. 

Sherlock returned a mere 45 minutes later, kicking the chair that John dozed in. 

“Where is she?” 

John snapped awake when his chair shook. 

“What are you talking about Sher….” He looked over to the bed where Barbary had been just a little earlier. It was empty. He was about to make a comment about the fact that she could have slipped away to the restroom, except that her IV was dangling from the pole, and the needle was attached to nothing currently.


	8. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John broaches the subject of Barbary's connection to Mycroft with Sherlock. There's a little insight into Barbary's space in Sherlock's mind palace. And something about a shady taxi driver. Ever the same really.

“Damn! We need to get our hands on the hospital security feeds.”

Sherlock looked angry. Correction; Sherlock looked as though he might cause John some bodily harm. 

“Calm down Sherlock. I’m sure she left on her own. If someone had come after her, I would have heard their footsteps or some sort of sound that she would have made.”

“Are you sure about that? You didn’t seem to hear a sound she made when she slipped away in the first place.”

“Sherlock, let’s just check the security footage, yeah.” 

Apparently, Mycroft had given strict orders that Sherlock and John were to be given access to anything they asked for because, when they asked for the footage, they were given complete access with no questions   
asked.

“See, Sherlock, she got up and left of her accord; nobody grabbing her and forcing her out of the front door.”

“She shouldn’t be leaving yet. What does she think she is doing?” 

John, for once, knew exactly what she was up to. As Sherlock began to race out of the hospital, John did his best to keep up as well as dash off a quick text to Mycroft. 

**“S.O.S.!!! Our girl is gone. Left hospital alone. Find her. JW”**

Whatever his involvement may or may not be, if someone was indeed after Sherlock and this woman was a link in that case, then Mycroft should be kept in the loop. Life would be much smoother for John himself in   
the long-run by playing by the rules. 

“John, I will need you to get a message to Mycroft. Someone that is after me attacked her….”

“I’ve already done, Sherlock.”

Sherlock merely looked at John, pleasantly surprised by the fact that his friend had anticipated the command before it was given. 

“We should go back to Baker Street, at least for the moment, in case she turns up there.”

“Then, what Sherlock?”

“I don’t know; I have to think.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Once back at Baker Street Sherlock and John raced up the stairs to their flat; Sherlock was already very clearly deep in thought….or at least trying to be. His thoughts were scattered and he wasn’t sure why.

He barely knew this woman; although they had shared quite the interlude the other night, he still knew next to nothing about her….yet she was taking up a great portion of his thoughts. He shuddered to think of the mess she had made of his mind palace. He couldn’t get a single thought to stick long enough to examine it closely. He vaguely heard John’s voice breaking through the fog. 

“What was that?”

“I think we need to consider her possible connection to Mycroft.”

“Why should we? What on earth could Mycroft have to do with someone like her? She’s not his type at all, for work or for play.”

“Look at the facts for a moment will you. Focus Sherlock,” although, if John had to be honest, it was somewhat humorous to see Sherlock all in a twist over a woman for a change. “She arrives here, at Baker Street,   
beaten about the head. She says her boss is a slave driver and he doesn’t appreciate her….does that not sound a bit like Mycroft? Be honest. She mentions that someone is out to get you. In the ambulance she tells me that she will not allow anyone to get close enough to you to hurt you. If she was just a normal woman, why would she say such a thing? The average woman barely knows how to protect herself in a confrontation, let alone to protect someone else so thoroughly. And think about the fact that we were rerouted to a different hospital than Bart’s. Why was that? And I might as well tell you that, when you left on that case with Lestrade, Mycroft made an appearance in Barbary’s hospital room. He admits that he was behind the change of venue. He admits nothing so far as being Barbary’s ‘boss’, but that is of little shock, he reveals little about his work usually. When he first entered the room his exact words were ‘My dear girl, what have you gotten yourself into…’. He asked whether I thought she would be back to normal in a few days etc. When I told him what Barbary said about her boss not appreciating her, he turned to me before he left the room and told me that he always appreciated her. Sherlock, we have to at least examine the possibilities. If this was anyone else, you would have turned over every stone by now.”

“Perhaps. But this leads me to my next question. What does Mycroft have on Barbary?”

“What? That’s the question you ask?”

“Think about it. Barbary seems so….”

“Ordinary?” 

“Almost. But she does seem at least somewhat intelligent. What sort of dirt does Mycroft have on her to get her to do his bidding? She seems too smart to get into business with him.”

“Maybe. But, I still think that she’s working for him in some capacity. It’s the only thing that really makes much sense at all. And, like I said before, if this was anybody else, you would have already figured everything out. I think you have become rather attached to Barbary and rather quickly, too, I might add. And that may be clouding the issue.” John new he was poking the bear.

“Don’t be absurd. I don’t do sentiment. Feelings for other people aren’t my division.’ Seeing John arching a brow at him, ‘Ordinarily; although I do count you and Mrs. Watson as dear friends.”

John could only roll his eyes a little harder, ‘You deny having any feelings for her then?”

“John, I fail to see how this has anything to do with our current endeavor.”

“That smelled faintly of denial.” 

“Do shut up.”   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Across town in his posh old farts club, Diogenes, Mycroft received John’s hastily sent text. Smiling somewhat smugly he fired one back at John.

**‘Find her. Whatever for. She is….her own woman.MH’**

John glanced at his phone. 

“What has Mycroft said?”

“Nothing; just avoiding the truth. God, that must be an inherited trait.”

John took a moment to fire yet another text back to Mycroft.

**‘She’s her own woman? Or, is it that she is under your employ? Find her Mycroft! I shudder to think what Sherlock will do to those involved if something were to happen to her. JW’**

Then almost as an after-thought….  
**‘PS: How many times did Sherlock throw that American mercenary that beat Mrs. Hudson out of the window? JW.’**

Momentarily his phone pinged with a response.

**‘You have a valid point there Dr. Watson. I will have my people locate her and find out her medical status. MH’**

“I see that you have brow beaten my brother into doing your bidding. I am impressed John; didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Yeah, well it was either that or march into Diogenes and hold a gun to his head. As sorely tempting an option as that was, I don’t relish being out-numbered by MI-6.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Back at her apartment building, Barbary walked through the door, holding her hand to her head. That headache she was sporting from the beating she took had never really gone away. She knew she should have stayed in the hospital, but there was work that needed to be done. First things first; she had to touch base with Edward and Phillip to get what information they might have come across….that is if Mycroft hadn’t already badgered them into giving it to him, making her efforts worthless. 

They showed her the video feed from the other night, when she had Sherlock over….the dark feed with the man smoking the cigarette across the street, just out of range.

“Poppet, we also have these brief shots of him since then.” Phillip had Edward play some of the raw footage that they had collected over the past few days. It was the same man, only some of the shots were in   
daylight. They could at least assume it was the same man. By using the night time footage and using the light from the cigarette in his mouth to estimate the man’s height, they used an algorithm to get more details. 

“We haven’t been able to find his face in any of our databases….”Edward began explaining, but trailed off when he and Phillip noticed the pallor in Barbary’s face change. 

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, gripping the desktop for balance, ‘You’re not likely to. He’s had work done to change his looks…even going so far as to have the doctor who did the work reshape portions of his jaw. And he’s dyed his hair….maybe even cut it a bit.”

“How can you possibly recognize him then?” 

“I am the reason he had to get the work done. Or have you forgotten? Eight, maybe 10 years ago…Macedonia. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

“Ah. That’s him? But, Poppet, you were out-numbered. The place was rigged with explosives, we were ordered to pull you out.”

“Uh, yeah. I know. I planted nearly half of them. And now he’s back to finish the job apparently. We’ll see who comes out on top this time. I hope he brought back up.”

“Last time they brought their own bombs….and guns, lots of them. Be careful what you wish for. But of course you did assassinate the assistant of the Prime Minister.”

“He deserved to die. He was at the top of the food chain in the smuggling operation that had taken those girls. Beyond the fact that human trafficking is illegal and inhumane, he made his government look bad. I   
now have a flat with all the trimmings in Skopje at my disposal anytime I want it, courtesy of their President.”

“Our point was he found out you were after him and made arrangements. If we had not pulled you out when we did….”

“Yes, I know. And, I know that both of you have been waiting for an excuse to go rogue on Mycroft ever since.”

“He told us to ditch the operation. He knew you were still down there!”

“I know that as well. As you have said, the place was rigged with explosives; you could have all been killed. Sacrifice one for the greater good.”

“No. We have seen to your welfare since we brought you back from Marrakesh. You’re like our own daughter. If you go, we go. When the time comes, you will not be left out in the cold. Remember that.” Edward   
smiled and Phillip winked. 

Barbary hugged them both before turning back to the issue at hand, ‘So the question remains…Who is our dear friend working for now?”

“Well, now that we know who it is, we can start to narrow down the possibilities.” 

“Quite right….” Barbary’s head was still aching quite a bit from the head wound she had received just the day before and she couldn’t repress the need to grasp her head in her hands now as the throb got worse.   
Apparently her pain meds were wearing thin. 

“Did he do this? The man in the videos; did he do this?” Phillip was deadly serious. Nobody messed with his Poppet…

Barbary carefully shook her head. Edward stood and made to help her to the elevator; he was going to take her to her flat and see that she got some rest in her own bed.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Ordinarily, Sherlock would have done all he could to come between John and Mary having a night in; if for no other reason than to be a total dick head….since he didn’t get into conventional hobbies like football or whatever it was that the fellows were into these days, making other people’s life difficult was it for him. He’d turned it into an art form. But tonight would be an exception; he had made reservations for John and   
Mary to have a nice quiet evening out at one of the best restaurants in town, the entire meal (including several of the finest bottles of wine) was paid for. He even managed to arrange to have one of Mycroft’s cars to pick them up. 

John knew he should be at least skeptical about the effort that Sherlock was putting into a date night for him and Mary. There was a stench of underhandedness about it all. Sherlock wasn’t the kind of person that would just do all of this without some reasoning behind it. John knew, without asking, that it likely had something to do with Barbary. Oh! That’s it. He’s going to go looking for her and try to ferret out information and he doesn’t want me rubbing it in that I was the one who actually ‘observed’ for a change. John could have laughed at his own train of thought. He knew there would be time to rub salt in the wound later. But tonight, he was going to enjoy this date with his wife fully.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
It had to have been 6:45 before John and Mary were picked up to begin their date night. Sherlock gave an extra ten minutes to be sure that they were well up the road without any chance of them seeing him before hailing a taxi for himself. He gave the driver the address; when he arrived at the building containing Barbary’s flat, he paid and left the driver a handsome tip. Sherlock had used him as well as a few of his cabbie brethren to supplement his homeless network; and it paid dividends to take care of your sources. He knew that someone was out to get him and that someone had attacked Barbary, by having this cabbie keep his eyes and ears peeled as well as the feelers that he had with the network, he felt as though he would come to a conclusion in no time at all. 

Next, he made his way into the building seeing the one older gentleman behind the desk. 

“Phillip, is it?” 

“Yeah? Oh, you’re that bloke that was with our poppet….”

Edward happened to be exiting the lift at this time and saw Phillip talking to someone. 

“Ah, yes. Mr. Holmes.”

“You know who I am?”

“Sir, in this day and age, in this city, who doesn’t? Besides, we know your…”

“Phillip!” Edward cut the chatty older man off quickly. 

Phillip cleared his throat carefully. Edward glared at him a second longer before continuing. 

“We know you’re friends with our poppet. She has mentioned you, said you were an acquaintance of sorts. I just saw to it that she reached her flat safely. You may go up if you like.” 

“Sirs, I already know that you have dealings with my brother. I am not privy to the extent, nor do I care, but I do know that you move in…..similar circles. “

“How could you possibly….”

“Oh, Phillip, you old fool….First of all, he’s Sherlock Holmes….that was a stupid question. Secondly, the fact that you all but told him pretty much gave it away. You know how Mycroft is, and you don’t think that his brother would have inherited at least a portion of the man’s intelligence and dedication to his work?”

Sherlock grinned smugly at the two older gentlemen, ‘Quite right; although, in many ways I am far more intelligent than my brother.”

“Then please explain to me why it is that your brother is for all intents and purposes the British government, making a handsome yearly salary with regular income, and you’re……NOT.”

“Boring.” Was all that Sherlock said before he made his way to the lift and then, consequently, up to Barbary’s flat. 

Mumbling under his breath as Sherlock walked away from their security desk, Edward couldn’t help but make an observation of his own.

“He’s even more insufferable than his brother in a lot of ways.”

“Yeah, but not by much. It’s a shame they couldn’t be more like their father, he’s a good man.”

“Or even their mum. She might ask 100 questions, but at least she’s polite.” 

“Yeah, and she makes some puddings to die for.”

“Phillip, really?”

“What? Her puddings are like m’own mum used to make….they’re quite good if I say so myself.”

“Well she does dote on you a bit.”

“Because I complement her puddings.”

“You’re hopeless; stick to being a sniper.” The two old friends fell into a small fit of laughter as they turned their attentions back to their security screens and making plans for a sweep of the building later.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Sherlock finally made it to the floor that held Barbary’s flat, picking the lock as he does with any door that stands in his way. Once he got the door opened, he assessed his Barbary’s…..Barbary’s condition. 

‘My Barbary?” Sherlock was taken aback trying to figure out where in the hell that came from. As it was, she was leaning against the wall that separated her main living space from her bathroom. She seemed to be   
taking deep breaths to try to control a bout of dizziness quite possibly; she didn’t even seem to notice that Sherlock had picked the lock and was now standing completely inside of her flat. 

“You should still be in hospital.”

“Why? I’m a fully functionin….” She threw up her hand, holding up her index finger to signify that he would have to wait for her to finish that comment. She dove into the bathroom, slamming the door shut and   
Sherlock could distinctly hear her vomiting. She seemed to give herself an extra minute or two to make sure she was finished before brushing her teeth, cleaning herself up and exiting the room.

“What do you want Sherlock?” 

“Why would you leave the hospital when you are clearly still in need of medical care?”

“That is what you came here for?”

“Hardly, it’s merely the first question on my mind….followed up closely by….How do you know my brother?”

“Your brother? Have I met him?” Barbary gave him a mock clueless look.

“Who is after me? And, what is it that you think you can do to stop them? Oh, and…Where the hell have you been for the past three days that you can’t bother to answer my texts?”

“I don’t actually know who is after you. All I know is what the man said when he bashed me in the head…..Not answering your text? Poor baby; I didn’t realize I had to run my itinerary past you. ”

“He would have to be watching you over the past week or two to learn your routine and know where you would be.” Sherlock began to pace a bit as he thought.

“As to where I have been for three days….I told you, I’ve been doing some thinking. And, more to the point, who says the thug was following me? If the people that he represents are out for your blood, he could   
have been watching you instead.”

“Where?” 

“Rooftop of my favorite building in this city. I enjoy seeing the skyline at night, everything lit up. London is quite lovely then. It seems as though I didn’t anticipate the weather though; it rained for two out of the   
three days….it got a bit cold on the rooftop I must say. Oversight.”

“How?”

“How what exactly?” Barbary saw the arched eyebrow that Sherlock gave her; she knew that he knew that she was avoiding the question. 

“How do you know my brother?”

“I. Don’t. Know. Your. Damned. Brother.”

(During the conversation, Barbary had been moving around her flat, making tea, and setting some biscuits on a tray to go with it all.)

“Mint tea today?”

“Yes. It’s a Moroccan thing. It’s actually quite good.”

“When were you in Morocco?”

“I lived there years ago. It was an…..exchange program…I was a part of.”

“Really? An exchange program? What school did you go through? I assume it was some American school.”

“You need to stop making assumptions about who I am and where I am from. It’s rude. And it’s starting to piss me off. Why do you keep assuming that I am American anyway?”

“I keep hearing muddled aspects of your accent. You’re certainly not English…..”

“And I explained to you that I have lived all over the world at various times in my life. I have picked up the languages and accents of the places that I have been; of course my accent is bound to be muddled   
sometimes. It gets hard to focus on one accent at the time sometimes.”

“Hmmm….I suppose.” Sherlock knew she was lying. She must get so tired playing this insufferable game.

They sat together on her sofa, drinking the tea and eating the biscuits. Sherlock couldn’t resist, he had to try to get the truth out of her. He knew she was lying about not being American; at the very least she was being evasive, and that was practically the same thing. And, he also wanted to know more about her link to the traffickers that she said were after him, as well as her link to Mycroft.

“What school did you go to as a girl?”

“What?” Barbary tried to act as though she hadn’t heard the question over the crispiness of the biscuit that she was eating. 

“Don’t play coy, it doesn’t suit you. What. School. Did. You. Attend. When you were a young girl?”

“Elementary, Jr High, or High school?” 

“Pick one.” That answer right there told him she was indeed American. A person who had grown up in Great Britain or Continental Europe would have referred to their schools differently.

“Look. It’s been a long a long week for me…”

“Alright. Skip that. John said that Mycroft came to see you in the hospital.” 

“Who is Mycroft again? Is this Mycroft person the same as the brother you think that I know?”

“ John told Mycroft that you didn’t think that he appreciates you….as he turned to leave moments later, Mycroft told John basically that you are wrong. He said that he has always appreciated you.”

“Well, he has a bloody unusual way of showing it.” Barbary had meant it to be mumbled under her breath, but Sherlock heard her nonetheless. 

“And by that you mean…?”

“I really should send this Mycroft person a THANK YOU note….that is the proper thing to do, is it not?”

“I wouldn’t know; I rarely do the proper thing.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Mary.”

“Mary. She knew I wanted to meet you; set the whole thing up, meeting at the theater and all.”

“Why would you care to meet me?”

“You can’t be serious? I keep track of your career….the cases you’ve worked, John’s blog, anything that Mary tells me about you is usually committed straight to memory….the few times I have heard you give   
interviews for the news….your voice….that damned voice. Mary has known of my little crush on you for a long time. I guess setting it up so you and John would come to the theater and we would finally meet was Mary’s version of a birthday present for me.”

“And now, the real reason?”

“I just told you; Mary wanted to give me a birthday present. Now, Mr. Holmes, I am going to bed.” Barbary walked through the room, ripping off the hospital bracelet as she went, dropping it on the floor, following it   
up with the sweat shirt that she had been given by the hospital. Underneath the sweat shirt she had a camisole shirt; and there went all ability for Sherlock to reason as a higher life form. She wore a pair of joggers that were a bit too large for her, making her seem even smaller than she already was; they were long enough on her that she had to roll the bottoms of the legs of them up so she wouldn’t walk on them, and the draw-string was pulled as snug as she could get it and the waistband was still too big, so she had taken to rolling the waistband over to help hold them on. Soon they hit the floor as well, leaving her clad only in the camisole top and a pair of boy-cut underwear. Of course Sherlock, having lost all ability to think clearly, followed. If you’re going to do one bad thing, you might as well do it at least twice. 

As Barbary reached the sleeping alcove, she turned at the edge of the bed to find Sherlock standing damn near on top of her; her face nearly collided with his chest when she turned around.   
Hearing her gasp of surprise, Sherlock couldn’t help the smug smile that graced his face; however, that same smile was wiped away when she pushed him away from her.

“I don’t think that it’s a good idea for you to stay the night tonight. I’m still sick after all and I don’t want to give you whatever I have.”

“That’s exactly why I should stay. Well, that, and your concussion.”

“Don’t worry about me. Phillip and Edward are looking out for me tonight. You should go home. I don’t want to be responsible for the world’s only consulting detective coming down too sick to work properly.”

Sherlock could see the glint of something in her eye. He couldn’t have named it if his life depended on it; maybe it was a bit of sadness, but it was mixed with other things that Sherlock could never have understood   
if his life depended on it….perhaps a touch of betrayal, but why? He hadn’t betrayed her. 

“Go home Sherlock; we can grab some lunch or something another day this week, after I get better.”

“As you wish.” He didn’t want to argue with her. He needed to get back to Baker Street so he could go through his mind palace. He already had a room dedicated to Barbary; so far it was Spartanly furnished and looked a lot like the inside of her flat with books and papers everywhere. It looked very much like a mad professor’s study would look actually. There was probably loads of information to learn on those sheaves of paper, but they were scattered all around and written in so many different languages. Sherlock determined he should really reorganize her room into more of a tower; he thought of the biblical Tower of Babel when he thought of her, and he was not a religious man in the least. But she was becoming a puzzle. All those scattered papers and books leading to information about her that he desperately wanted to know, but the closer he got to the truth, he kept getting knocked back down to square one….very similar in nature to the mythology around the fabled tower itself.  
Before leaving, Sherlock leaned closer to her, wrapping his arms around her; his right arm wrapped around her left shoulder, allowing him to cup the back of her head. His left arm went around her waist, allowing his hand to splay across her back. Next, he kissed her deeply, the kind of kiss that your mother warned you about….well her mother would have warned her about if she had lived long enough. It was the kind of kiss that wrecked all of your ovaries. 

“Goodnight, then, Barbary. Text me when you want to go out.” Sherlock turned as he was leaving to shut her door behind him and he saw that same sad, confused, betrayed look on her face; only there was more sadness in her eyes this time around. 

Getting into the cab, he gave the cabbie instructions to take him back to Baker Street; as he rode quietly, he began trying to organize some of the information that he had gleaned and that would be joining what   
already littered the shelves of his mind palace when he got home. 

“Are you Sherlock Holmes, sir?” The cabbie seemed genuinely interested to know. “I’ve read about you a great deal in the papers. Never thought I’d ever get the pleasure of meeting you then. Today must be my lucky day. My wife will never believe the story I tell her tonight.” 

The cabbie had an accent not unlike Cockney; probably had a lower standard of education. One does not expect to see a trained engineer or physicist behind the wheel of a taxi-cab at any rate. 

“Yes, I am Sherlock Holmes. Thank you for noticing.” Sherlock did his best to keep the disdain out of his voice. Ordinarily he wouldn’t care; but John, Mary, Molly….hell even Barbary in her way, had been trying to curb his natural reaction to rubbish conversations. He figured he would try it their way for a change. Being polite was almost excruciating. He didn’t understand what people got out of it. 

After a few more minutes, they arrived at 221 B. “Here we are Mr. Holmes; hope you enjoy the rest of your day, sir.” 

“Thank you.” Sherlock replied curtly as he passed a few bills over to pay the driver, tipping him rather well before walking through the front door of the building. 

After watching Sherlock make his way into the residence at 221 B, the cabbie gave a smug smile to himself. 

“Poor bastard doesn’t even know what’s coming.” He began to chuckle to himself as he pulled away from the curb and made his way to the docks where he would dump the car. Was he a different sort of man he might feel bad about the body of the real cabbie in the trunk. He seemed like a nice chap really, so helpful. But the man had seen his face; he knew too much….he couldn’t be allowed to live.   
After dumping the car down by the docks, the stranger picked up a can of petrol he found sitting nearby; there was just enough in it. He doused what he could of the car and struck a match, setting the whole business ablaze. The charred body in the trunk would take a little while for them to puzzle out and link back to him, if they were ever able to; in the meantime he had to gather some more intel before striking. He turned to the city of London, making his way back to the main road to catch a ride to the hotel he had been put up in. He needed a shower. Murder didn’t bother him, it came with the job; but all of this damned waiting was driving him insane.


	9. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smoking body in the trunk. Two mysterious anonymous calls to the cops. What? Barbary has a son? Donovan makes a faux pas. Be careful Billy Wiggins. Who is this Khaled person?

Barbary gave it another five minutes before going to her door, opening it and checking the hallway. Apparently, Sherlock really had left. Immediately she ran and jumped into the shower; she felt as though she had to get the funk of the last few days off of her, never mind the fact that she had vomited earlier….she really, really needed a nice hot shower and a good shampooing. 

After scrubbing down as diligently as possible, she dried off and walked completely naked through her apartment. This wasn’t something she would ordinarily do; but there was nobody there to see, so why not?   
She raided her closet pulling out a pair of wide-leg, boot-cut jeans. Before jumping into them she pulled on some warm socks; she was still chilled to the bone after those days on the rooftop in the rain. Next, she put on her lingerie. Then she grabbed a bright blue Oxford style, button front blouse. While her hair was still damp, she pulled it back into a high and tight pony-tail, combing it out once it was up to ensure that every tangle was out and the hair was as smooth as possible. Next, she grabbed a pair of boots that she liked….they were leather, matte finish, with a slight heel (she hated heels, although most people of a shorter stature liked wearing heels to feel as though they were at least as tall as their counterparts…she hated the things). Then she took out her ‘tool belt’ and fastened it around her waist. On this belt were an assortment of small blades, four handguns (glocks; each gun had one extra clip), a small container of lighter fluid, a lighter…..after seeing that her belt was in place she grabbed her screaming red military style tweed jacket that had a hood; this coat came just slightly past her hips.

Yes, it might seem strange to wear something of such an alarming color when one was trying to blend in, especially considering the rest of her outfit was black. But, over the years, Barbary had found that this worked for her. In the event that the locals were asked by police to give a description of her, all they would likely be able to tell the cops is that it was a small woman wearing a red coat. Most of them would never be able to give a description of her face….they would only see a red coat and an hour-glass figure.

She walked out of her flat into the lift and made her way down to Edward and Phillip’s concierge desk. 

“Poppet?”

“Yes?”

“Do you feel up to recon work?”

“It’s not whether I feel up to it. I don’t really. But, it must be done if I am to know exactly what I am up against.” 

Truth be told, her head was still pounding; the concussion had faded some, but the headache left in its wake was a killer. And she couldn’t get warm; she still had a bit of a fever that she couldn’t shake. But this was the job. Yes, other people could be sent to gather the information she needed; but, their interpretation of the information could be different from hers. They might miss a detail that could be important, or they may give details that mean nothing. If she was to learn anything of substance and come out ahead, she had to do her own dirty work. 

“Besides, I have already called Tarek, he will be accompanying me.” She let out a confident, if not deviant giggle, as she walked towards the door of the building. She pulled up the hood on her jacket as she made her way toward the car waiting just beyond; Tarek waiting in the driver’s seat. 

“Mama, where would you like to go?”

“The bridge, baby boy. We need to ask around about any activities near the river.” 

“Of course, as you wish.”

Tarek put the car in gear and began making his way through the London streets to the first bridge over the Thames that he would come to. Barbary wasn’t sure that traffickers were behind this, but if the man stalking her all over London was who she expected him to be, it was a fair assumption. It was the only lead she had right now. And, where should you look for information about traffickers? The river, the docks, the old abandoned warehouses in that area. 

Homeless people and those who worked the docks would be her best assets right now. Tarek with a pocket full of cash and an imposing size would grease the wheels of information quite nicely. She could not   
involve the police; they would only muck things up for her. They would want to do their little investigations. The fellows at Scotland Yard were noble enough…she knew quite a few nice detectives there. But, if those that were responsible for the threats made to Sherlock and her own attack were traffickers, they would smell law enforcement a block away. If they knew she was coming for them, all they would be able to smell was the stench of death.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Sherlock was frustrated; John could tell as much when he arrived back at Baker Street. He and Mary had decided to check on Sherlock after their dinner. They could tell by the strains of….it couldn’t be called music exactly….coming from the violin. 

“Oh no.”

Mary giggled, ‘Barbary must have thrown him a curve ball.”

“I don’t think I like curve balls Mary. Curve balls….a bit not good for Sherlock.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s nice that somebody can finally keep him on his toes for a change.”

“You don’t have to deal with the world’s largest 2 year old on a daily basis.” 

Upon opening the door to the flat John and Mary saw Sherlock punishing that poor violin. Without breaking stride, Sherlock turned on them, dropping that poor Strad into his leather chair with the bow. 

“She is confounding me.” 

“So this is about Barbary then.” 

“Of course it is John, please keep up. It takes too much energy to stop and explain myself every time.”

John just glared at him before turning away from him to head into the kitchen to make some tea.

“What has she done now?” Mary was doing her best to stifle a shit eating grin.

“I blame you for this you know. Mary, she is your friend. You need to talk some sense into her.”

“Answer the question Sherlock. What has she done now?” John came back into the room carrying the tray with all the things needed to make a wonderful cup of tea. 

Sherlock was pacing. 

“This must be good. He can’t seem to come up with a satisfactory answer.” Mary still couldn’t help but snicker. 

Sherlock shot her a look that would have killed a lesser woman. 

“Sherlock….” 

“I offered to stay with her.” Seeing the look that John and Mary gave him, ‘she’s still sick. I didn’t think she should be by herself; she did suffer a concussion after all. And it seems, at least in part, to be my fault somehow. Staying was the least I could do. But she said ‘NO’. What exactly have you told her about me Mary?”

“Nothing.”

“Mary....”

“Nothing. Much.”

Grabbing his cell phone, Sherlock began to fire off a text to Mycroft. Before he could hit send, the man himself appeared at the door to the flat. 

“I see that you have decided to have a quiet evening in tonight then, eh brother dear.”

“What have you done Mycroft?”

“Whatever do you mean?” 

“You have said or done something to Barbary?” 

“I had heard that her attack was in some way connected to someone that is after you. I stopped by the hospital to see to her well-being; as I am here now to see to yours.”

“She works for you; John has helped me establish that fact. Thank you John, by the way. Tonight she looked sad, possibly angry. What have you said to her?”

“She’s concerned for your safety. You are an acquaintance of hers.” Mycroft said with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“No. I don’t believe you. I mean, I believe you, but there is something that you are not telling me.” 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Mycroft couldn’t help the grimace that accompanied his words.

“If you’ve done something to hurt her Mycroft….’ Mary started in a tone that brooked no arguments.

“You are not exactly in a position to issue threats, are you Mrs. Watson?” 

“You leave my wife out of this!”

“She fairly well involved herself, didn’t she? And really John, what could you possibly do to me?” 

“I can take quite good care of myself as things go, thank you John darling. Mycroft, you know what this will do to her.” That last bit, Mary shot through gritted teeth.

“I haven’t the time or the inclination to continue this little discussion. I have to be on my way. Pressing matters of national importance and all. Sherlock, will you be there for father’s birthday?” 

Sherlock never answered, just stared icily at his brother. Without another word, the elder Holmes brother made his grand exit. 

No sooner than the front door of 221-B had shut than Sherlock had turned on Mary. 

“What. Do. You. Know?”

“Nothing.”

“How do you really know Barbary?”

“The thea….”

“And if you say that bloody theatre….” Sherlock’s voice began rising slightly.

“If she hasn’t told you herself maybe she has a reason to keep it to herself.”

“I AM NOT a child. I wish that when it comes to matters dealing with my own life and personal safety people would stop treating me as such and hiding information from me.”

“You mean like when someone dives off of the rooftop of a building to keep his friends from being killed by a sniper and plays dead for two years?” John tilted his head and looked at Sherlock with an arched   
eyebrow. 

“Are we still on that?” 

“I don’t know Sherlock, are we? It doesn’t feel so great when the shoe is on the other foot does it?” 

“Suddenly, I know what an aneurism must feel like. I don’t ultimately care who or why they are after me. But, in the process of coming after me, they have attacked her. And it is apparent that she works for my brother in some capacity, what that is…I don’t know. But, if they come after me, attacking her in the process, then it stands to reason that an attack on Mycroft and therefore the British government could possibly follow. And, even if that doesn’t take place…it is evident that your wife; yes you Mrs. Watson, apparently know Barbary from some place other than the theatre. Since you have a past as an assassin, I have to assume that your paths crossed back during that time. And, if that is the case, who is to say that they won’t target you? We have to look at all possible angles.”  
Sherlock walked brusquely across the room, walking on top of the coffee table, and then standing on the sofa as he took down some of the pictures that were currently hanging on the wall and beginning to replace them with pictures of Barbary that some of the people on his ‘Homeless Network’ had sent him through text messages (or delivered to him by hand) as well as a picture of Mycroft (that he promptly drew a Hitler style mustache on). To this he added a picture of himself, one of John and Mary together…  
Backing up he began to look at the pictures and connect them with his strings across the enormous map of London behind them all. After prepping his map, he stepped down from the sofa and made his way back over to the fireplace, glaring. 

“What is it now?”

“Too many variables.”

“What?” 

“I know that Mycroft is involved; Barbary and myself of course. You and Mary are involved by default, maybe…maybe more than default. But there are players that I don’t know of yet. I have my network looking into   
the finer details that might escape us. A couple of them have a lead on an identity of the person who attacked Barbary, but nothing solid yet. I don’t like not knowing.”

“What lead seems to be so promising?” 

“Something about a mercenary that has been tracking her. I knew he was following her. She said they were likely following me. I wonder if she really thought that or if…”

“Don’t be daft. She was trying to get you to back off the trail.” 

“Precisely. Wiggins tells me that this man’s path crossed with Barbary around ten years ago in Macedonia….”

“Macedonia? That’s an odd place. You’d expect strange things to happen in Russia, Serbia, places like that….you’re always hearing about the things they are up to in the news. But, Macedonia?”

“Yes John. Macedonia. Apparently the criminals are getting hip to the fact that Russia, Serbia, and places like that are becoming hot spots for criminal activity. And, depending on the sort of crime that you are into, low key is the way to go.”

“Yeah, I suppose. Macedonia. Hmm.” 

Sherlock’s phone went off, he answered it. 

“What! We’ll be there in…’ Sherlock looked at his watch, ‘give us twenty minutes.”

“What’s going on?”

“That was Lestrade. There’s been a fire down by the docks, a taxi cab; body in the trunk.”

Mary tossed John the coat that he had thrown into his favorite chair with a whispered, ‘Go.”

John raced behind Sherlock as they left Baker Street, hailing another cab and giving him the address of the crime scene. Upon arrival, Sherlock recognized the cab immediately; he could just make out the call numbers of the car near the fender, they hadn’t been completely destroyed yet.

“The body?” Sherlock coldly asked of Lestrade.

“There’s not much left. We’ll have to get him down to Bart’s and let Molly have a go at it. At this rate, dental records will likely be our best bet.”

“I knew this man. Briefly. I sat in this cab not more than an hour ago. It took me from the Academy Buildings, off the N1 back to Baker Street.”

“The Academy Buildings? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Les…”

“Sherlock’s new….girlfriend…lives there.” John chanced.

“She is not my girlfriend…”

“Sherlock doesn’t ‘do’ relationships.”

“Yeah, well this girl already has him pretty turned around; so I wouldn’t be too sure about things.” John grinned. He knew he’d pay for this later, Sherlock would find a devious way to pay him back; this time it might be something worse than sawing on that poor violin at 2:45 in the morning like a complete novice. It wasn’t totally out of the question to expect to wake up to various body parts scattered in his bed or around his room as payback. This was Sherlock after all. Be that as it may, John had to take his shots when he could. 

“What’s she like? If she has Sherlock in such a twist, I have to meet her. She deserves a medal.”

“She’s lovely. She’s a young lady that Mary met through the theatre…” Sherlock audibly balked at this statement. “She’s just a mite though, a tiny thing. Quite attractive. When Sherlock first met her I thought for a   
moment that he might rip the arms off of one of the men that were on stage with her during rehearsals; and that was before they had even been introduced properly.”

“Back to important matters. Gavin, who called in the fire?”

Lestrade closed his eyes and shook his head, determined not to let Sherlock’s attitude get the best of him. “There were a few anonymous tips. According to our understanding, there was a caller with a thick Middle-Eastern accent; definitely male, quite deep voice. By virtue of it being anonymous there was no name or anything left that could identify the caller. But we have techs trying to trace the number that the call was placed from. So far they’ve come up with practically nothing. I’m not sure if the caller stayed on the line long enough for it to be possible to trace its location.”

Sherlock whirled around quickly, almost manically, checking his surroundings. 

“John. Barbary.”

“What about her?” 

“Her flat isn’t far from here, maybe a ten minute drive, fifteen at the most, depending on traffic of course.”

“Yes. But what has she got to do with a burned out taxi cab with a body in the trunk?”

“I don’t know. But it’s interesting, don’t you think. She gets attacked to send me a message, then, we find a burned out taxi almost within sight of her flat and one of the phone calls placed to the Yard about this   
particular fire was from an anonymous source.”

“People call in anonymous tips all the time Sherlock, that doesn’t mean tha….”

“How many other tips did you get about this fire, George?”

“Now, you’re just being a dick. We got eight.”

“How many of them were anonymous tips?”

“Two.”

“Of those two, did they sound English?”

“No. One was the man with the Arabic accent and the other was a woman that spoke mostly French, I think.”

“What are the odds that two people from two separate countries, staying in London at the same time would just so happen to come across this burning car and call in anonymous tips to the police?”

“Alright. Well, as I have said, we can run a trace on the numbers for those two calls.”

“Don’t bother. Likely they were both made from burner phones which have already been discarded.”

“Sherlock! John?”

“We think his girlfriend works for Mycroft.”

“Not my girlfriend.”

“Oh, for crying out…..If Mycroft is hip deep in this my job just got 100x’s bloody harder.”

“But you want her to be your girlfriend.”

“John. Really? ‘Married to my work’, ‘I don’t do relationships’. Have you been listening at all these past few years?”

“You see but do not observe, Sherlock.”

Sherlock glowered at John. Lestrade couldn’t help but snicker a bit, but he cut that short when Sherlock turned the rays of death on him. 

“Well, if she works for Mycroft, and is as you say connected to this somehow, you can bet there won’t be a lengthy investigation. Wait a second. If she works for…”

“Yes, Gavin, it’s very likely the reason that we met is because it was arranged to happen by the great wizard himself. Ah! Here we are now.”

An unknown car was pulling up to the scene; it was an electric blue color, not very subtle. Barbary got out of the passenger side, following behind a mountain of a man…an Arabic man…that was nearly three times   
her size. The man began to speak as they neared the grouping of three men, his accent thick. 

“The name of the man in the trunk is Giles Thatcher.”

“And how might you know this…” Lestrade was fishing for a name.

The mountain arched an eyebrow at Lestrade. Lestrade was not a small man, he was slightly above average height, and held his own as far as being able to defend himself. But, this man made him look like a tinker   
toy. He was roughly 2 meters tall and approximately 136 kg; he had dark hair…jet black as a matter of fact, that was long enough to hang just past his shoulders that he kept pulled neatly back at the base of his neck. 

“He is an acquaintance of mine.” Barbary stepped from behind the mountain and spoke finally. 

“Ah, you must be Barbary. John said you were a…friend of Sherlock’s.” 

“And you must be Inspector Lestrade. Mary has mentioned you a couple of times. She said you were handsome. But she didn’t do you justice.” 

She went on buttering Lestrade up. 

“And it starts…” Sherlock mumbled under his breath. 

“Jealous? I thought you said she wasn’t your girlfriend.” Lestrade managed to rib him, giving him a wink. 

Turning to Barbary, ‘We will have the pathologist at Bart’s perform an autopsy. I mean, we know how he died sure; it’s pretty cut and dry. But, it’s still procedure.” 

“I doubt that will be necessary.”

“Procedure.”

“Yes, and Gary is nothing if not a stickler for procedure.” Sherlock almost snarled as he glared at Lestrade. 

Barbary turned to the heap of man standing next to her and spoke to him in Arabic, with a few French words thrown in to confuse everybody. When she finished, the man turned and took out a cell phone and made   
a call. 

“I guess it’s the season for it then.” Sally was coming over to the group, snarky comments at the ready.

“Whatever are you talking about Donovan?” Sherlock really had no time for her today. He had a smoking body in the trunk of a car. The murderer was trying to send a message to him; said murderer had already attacked a woman he was attracted to. Let’s not mention that this woman was standing mere feet away, so distracting that Sherlock could barely string two thoughts together. It was plucking his nerves. 

“The season for the people around you to start dropping like flies, eh freak.” 

Poor Sally Donovan. She barely finished the word ‘freak’ before she was shoved against the burned shell of the car with a hand around her throat. Sally’s eyes were huge; she had never seen it coming.

“What. Did. You. Call. Him?” Barbary was doing her dead level best to be in Donovan’s face, even though the female detective was several inches taller than Barbary. Add to that the fact that Barbary kept squeezing her hand tighter around Donovan’s throat. “Considering how many times he has had to do your job for you, you should be kissing the feet of Sherlock Holmes as we speak.” The dangerous edge in her voice was unmistakable. 

There was a part of Sherlock that felt sorry for Sally. But the larger part of him felt smug….so damned smug. John and Lestrade both had to pull the tiny woman off of Donovan; John actually had to pry each of   
Barbary’s fingers separately from around her throat.

“Barbary, let go.” 

After they pulled her off, John pulled her several feet back to give Sally room to get out of the way.

“Call him a freak just once more in my presence. I dare you. That was your only warning.”

“You Bitch! You do understand that I am a police detective, surrounded by a great amount of some of the best police force in the entire country…and they each have access to weapons?”

“Yes. Well, let me tell you who I am. I am a highly trained assassin. I work for your freak’s brother. I don’t hesitate. My hands don’t shake. I know a little something about hand to hand combat. It would take me less   
than five minutes to leave you and this half of Scotland Yard a pile of rotting corpses; although it would pain me to do so. I will say it again. Call him a freak in front of me one more time. Please. I dare you.” 

Apparently, whatever phone call the mountain had taken was over because he came back over to the gathering and heard Barbary issuing threats. She didn’t write those checks idly. 

“Mother, leave the ignorant detective alone. She wasn’t raised any better.” The man, apparently named Tarek even went so far as to pat her on the head as if she was the child, until she glared up to him daring him to do it again.

“Baby boy are the arrangements made then?”

“Wait. What?” Sherlock’s and John’s heads whipped around between Barbary and the huge man. 

“What arrangements?” Lestrade was focused on the job, which was strange; Sherlock was usually the one that was too involved in the work and would have to remind everybody else to get back to work. 

“If you insist on having an autopsy run on this man, then I must insist that the pathologist has someone with her at all times. This man was killed because of his proximity not only to Sherlock, but also me. And if the person who did this would kill simple taxi driver, then they would have no trouble whatsoever going after a pathologist that is trying to help you catch the criminal. Tarek has made arrangements for…associates of ours to offer this pathologist protection until further notice.” 

“Yasmina has said she will be there within the next twenty minutes. We were lucky she was in the city.”

“No baby. She’s in the city because she is going to ask you to dinner. Act surprised when she comes over. I do love Yasmina, she’s such a good girl. That reminds me, I must send her father a ‘thank you’ note for the   
tea he shipped to me last week.”

“You could just invite Piri to dinner; he will be in town in the next few days. You could thank him then. You haven’t seen him since that last assignment that he helped us with, that was over six months ago.” 

“Wait a minute.” John and Sherlock both shouted.

“Yes boys?” Barbary looked at Sherlock and John.

“Are the two of you….” John was the only one able to eve try to get the question out. 

“Yes. Tarek is my son. He gets his height from his father, apparently.” Barbary shrugged as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “Oh, Donovan is it? I forgot you were there. You may go.” Barbary gave the female detective an arched eyebrow in hopes it would incite another confrontation. 

“Go on Sally, don’t antagonize her any further.” Lestrade gave the order. 

Upon seeing Anderson, Barbary couldn’t resist, ‘That’s what gets you on your knees then Sally? Oh. Well...I guess it’s true what they say. There’s no accounting for taste. But, then, I guess your options would be limited.” Turning back to Lestrade as she saw Sally Donovan start to come after her being stopped by one of the other officers on the scene, ‘Inspector Lestrade, I have some work to attend to in the city, but here is my mobile number. Contact me about the case if you must. Although, I would like to say that by the time you catch up to this killer you will need a shovel to scoop up what is left. Come boy, there is work to do.   
Good day Sergeant Donovan, and mind the knees.”

With that Barbary made her way back to the car that Tarek had driven to the scene. Sherlock looked smug, as though he had just won the Nobel Prize for his work…and he might have been struggling to not laugh at the whole interaction between the two women. John, himself, found it difficult not to break into fits of laughter. It was wonderful to see Sgt. Donovan finally put in her place by someone other than John or Sherlock. John would admit though, that he had to wonder what Lestrade thought of the whole display. 

Poor Anderson was still staring in shock; he couldn’t figure out what he had done to be dragged into this whole thing.

John couldn’t help himself, ‘Barbary, I thought that you were ill. You had pneumonia and a concussion.”

“Oh, John, my darlin’, I wasn’t quite as sick as I made out. The concussion was real enough though.”

Soon after Barbary’s departure, Sherlock and John also left. Sherlock needed to go claim his seat in front of Molly’s microscope at Bart’s, John needed to sit back and watch him be brilliant as always, and Molly…Molly needed to get them coffee.

“Sherlock?”

“I need to speak to Billy and find out what he knows. He can get the word out quickly enough.”

“Isn’t it possible that she may have her own homeless network?”

“Don’t be daft. She’s been paying my homeless people to snitch for her as well, doubling whatever I have been paying to get the information she needs. The only reason I let it continue without too much argument is because the money she is spending is Mycroft’s, and he deserves it.”

“How can you be sure that she is using ‘your’ network?”

“Oh please, Mycroft has paid her to become my shadow and you don’t think that she has learned about the homeless network?”

“When you put it that way, it does sound reasonable.”

“Quite. Now, I just have to explain to Mrs. Hudson that the rent may be a bit late this month.”

“Why don’t you just wait until Barbary finds the information out that she needs to know and then deduce it like you have done everything else. It will give your brain exercises to do and keep you from getting   
bored.”

“This is true.”

“And you do like Barbary. You also like deducing her more than most, even though she denies all the facts; it seems to be what makes it so fun for you, the fact that she thinks she can hide from you.”

“Yes. You have a marvelous idea; seems as though I won’t be upsetting Mrs. Hudson anytime soon then.” He had a grin on his face that couldn’t have been erased if you tried.

“What are you planning Sherlock? That look usually lands one or both of us in jail at least over-night. How many times has Lestrade had to bail us out?”

“Oh nothing like that John, do calm down. We’re going to Bart’s for a couple of hours, then after dropping you back at Baker Street I will need to go out for the night.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Down the street, a few buildings away, on the eighth floor of an office building, from an empty office that was down for remodeling, a man with a pair of high powered binoculars looked on the scene. He had a listening device employed as well. After he heard the bulk of the conversations, he cut the volume down on the machine and placed a call to his employers. 

“Yes, they were both on the scene. I had a decent vantage point. The chance couldn’t be taken; there were too many cops around. I thought that this should be done with some discretion. I thought it better to not draw too much attention, and having the better half of NSY within striking distance might be counter-productive to the issue at hand. Yes, Khaled, I know the objective. Obtain the girl at all costs; even if it means bringing down the elder Holmes brother as well. That I would do with great relish for free….consider it a bonus to you for the trouble of waiting so patiently. And, I may even have a way to get at the brothers Holmes, both of them, and their little dogs too. I will have to do a little more fact checking, but I may have an idea. Very well sir. Until later then.”

Upon hanging up the phone, the shadowy man picked up a stack of surveillance photos; Mary, John, Mrs. Hudson…Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes…some of these photos were of the players alone or together, some had them with Barbary….His prized photos though consisted of the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, as well as baby girl Watson. He could take the baby. John and Mary would fold quickly after that. He could take Mary or John and the other would fold (but either one of them were too dangerous a target without incentive to play along nicely…Mary was a former assassin/secret agent, Dr. Watson had been in the military, so he was no slouch). He could take Sherlock and Mycroft would cave at all costs. He could take Mycroft and Sherlock would likely give him an award. If he took the parents he could get Barbary, Sherlock, and Mycroft all in one. Barbary had never known what it was like to have a caring family; she would do whatever it took to keep the elders safe. The Holmes boys would come running to save the girl. If he took either Holmes brother, same results, Barbary would throw herself in front of a bus for them. 

He needed to take a few days to think of the different scenarios; how he could snatch whichever person might be. He may have to call in a few extra pairs of hands. He would huff and puff and blow this house of cards down by the time he was finished. 

He wanted that bitch’s head on a platter. Pulling Mycroft Holmes off of his high horse was a bonus he was sure to get paid handsomely for; and IF the British government crumbled in his absence, more the better, there was always someone waiting to fill the void. 

Packing up his surveillance gear, the man made his way back down to the river after the police left, dumping the bag. With it went the binoculars, the listening device, a couple of weapons….he could easily acquire others. He kept the photographs tucked carefully within a pocket on his black leather jacket and made his way across town to the abandoned building that he was using as his perch. 

As he made his way through the streets of London he inserted his ear buds and pressed play on his ipod, lighting a cigarette. ‘The Clash-London Calling’ began blaring, bringing a smile to his face. 

If he saw the homeless ‘tweeker’ that had watched him from around the corner; a tall young man with large blue eyes that bordered too large for his face, dark hair that was sort of disheveled, an old sweater probably salvaged from a dumpster or second-hand store. Upon watching the man with the Ipod pass buy him, this disheveled young man made his way back to his position and got comfortable; he needed to ready himself to make a call.


	10. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft tries to drive a wedge between Sherlock and Barbary; meanwhile, he isn't privy to everything going on with his own agents.

12, Oct. 2015---2 ½ days after the discovery of the dead cabbie  
**Meet me at Diogenes in 45mins. I have something I want to discuss with you. MH 12, Oct. 2015**

“Well there goes my night.” Sherlock tossed his phone onto the desk in the sitting room. 

“Mycroft again?” John glanced up at him from the page he was reading in the newspaper.

“At least the weather is suitably dull and tedious.”

“Too right. It couldn’t be any rainier and colder if it tried. It’s a miserable night out. Do you want me to go with you?”

“Hmmmm. No. Everything should be alright. If it was important enough to him, he would have just snatched us off of the streets.” 

Going back to his reading, John could only nod his head in agreement. 

Forty-three minutes later, a black car pulled up in front of Diogenes; the driver got out and went around letting out the passenger. Sherlock, getting out of the car, made his way through the club to his brother’s office. 

“What is so important Mycroft? And do be quick…..”

“Oh please Sherlock, it’s not like you have a pressing case on hand.”

“The dead cabbie….”

“And you know where that is going.”

“Under the rug with some of the others then?”

Mycroft simply smiled smugly. “Now, with the small talk out of the way…I want you to stay away from Barbary. You should not be involved with this woman.”

“What does it matter to you?”

“She is one of my agents and I have her placed in such a way to keep you out of danger.”

“What danger…oh. You’ve upset someone’s applecart and now you are worried about retaliation.”

“No. WE.”

“What?”

“WE both have upset someone’s applecart and they are planning retaliation. But I don’t want you consorting with her. I fear you may fall for her many significant charms.”

“Oh please, do you even realize who you are talking to?”

“This is how she works Sherlock. On an assignment she finds ways to get close to her mark. Sometimes it’s as simple as the way she tosses her hair or bats her eyes…sometimes she acts like a bumbling tart….other   
times she can come across as tremendously intelligent. She gets close to her mark, usually for the purposes of killing them. In your case it is just the opposite. If she gets close enough to you she thinks that it will make it easier to keep track of where you’re going and who might be following you around. I only want her doing her job, not my brother. There is also the social aspect of it. You are of a higher station in life, she is beneath you. “

“So, in review….You don’t want me to fall into some sordid affair with…what…what would you call her….”

“Agent…”Mycroft added carefully. 

“Hmmm, perhaps. But, I do know that the other night when we were together she was rather responsive to my advances, and now she will barely look me in the eye. What have you said to her?”

“Why do you think…” 

“You have done or said something to her. Now, what was it?”

“Stay away from her Sherlock, at least on the personal level. Otherwise, when this is over and she goes back to her normal self, you will be left in the dust. Do you think she is going to care a thing about you when   
she is assigned to a case in say, Cambodia or Kazakhstan? She will be on to her next mark and you will be just an after-thought.”

“Why would you even assign her to do something like this? Why not just use your usual men to trail me around London?”

“Under ordinary circumstances, they would be just fine. This situation requires more….just more. Barbary has no threshold on how far she will go to get the job done. If things fall apart she is not above fighting to   
the last man standing to achieve a favorable outcome. And as you can see, she usually is the last man standing.” 

“You’ve done exceedingly well avoiding the real answer.”

“Some of your investigations into lesser cases have, apparently, piqued the interest of some slave traders. They are worried that you are going to lead authorities straight to their operations.”

“Are you protecting the traders?”

“Hardly. These traffickers deal in sex slaves. I have actually been trying to shut this particular ring down for years. They are rather like a hydra. You cut off one head and two more grow back in its place. I would   
never protect anyone affiliated with them. But, if they think that you are sniffing around their operation they would not hesitate to take you out. And, if I was to be entirely honest with you, if they didn’t try to kill you they would likely torture you to find out what you might now about our government investigation into their operation. We’d have to start from scratch. Do you know how long it has taken to get this close to them?”

“Do tell.” 

“Sherlock. Please, I am only thinking of your well-being. You know how you get when things don’t go your way. And if you were to carry on with this woman and she was to leave you behind when she moved on,   
how do you think you would handle that?”

“I think you’re more concerned with taking care of your investigation into this slave trading ring and cover your own backside.” Sherlock glared at his brother. He knew then what he had to do. If Mycroft wanted him to back away from any association with Barbary he would get exactly what he wanted; but Sherlock was doing things his way. 

“Will you do as I say? Or, will I have to apply more pressure?” 

Sherlock never answered Mycroft, only turned his back and swept from the room dramatically as always, his now famous Belstaff swinging into place.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Morning of 13, Oct. 2015

Barbary woke up in a cold sweat; her eyes were spinning around the room at top speed trying to figure out where she was. Her breathing was heavy, as if she had just run a marathon. She couldn’t catch her breath. 

“Calm down old girl, you’re in your own flat…in your own bed.” Barbary tried telling herself this over and over again, just like every other night she had the same damned dream; it never worked much, but she had to try. Her hands were cold and clammy, even she could tell that. It had been three days since they found that burned out taxi on the docks with the driver’s body in the trunk. So far the only news she had received about it was that some of the homeless people and dockworkers that she and Tarek had spoken with fingered the same person for the blaze…the mysterious mercenary….the bastard, Kostya. She should have killed him ten years ago. If the building they were in hadn’t been rigged to explode, causing the room shake, the floor giving way underneath her as Edward and Phillip were dragging her away, she would have finished the job. This time around she would not be stopped. Kostya would die. 

“Get out of bed already!” Lying in the bed all day wasn’t going to make anything better. If she went back to sleep, the dream…nightmare really…would just come back; you could almost set your watch by that   
damned dream. Barbary hopped down out of bed and changed out of her pajamas and into some gym shorts and a tank top. After brushing her teeth and combing out her bed head she headed out of her flat to the lift in the hall. After stopping by the desk on the main floor to check in with Edward and Phillip, she took the lift the rest of the way down to the basement, entering the gymnasium.   
Barbary loved this gym. Of course it had all the equipment that you would find in a gym, but it also had a couple sets of uneven bars, four balance beams, three vaulting benches, five professional sized trampolines, an Olympic quality swimming pool, two sets of rings, and three sets of parallel bars. 

As it was, Barbary walked over to the mat and sat down, lying back staring at the ceiling; one would almost think she was meditating….wrong room for that. As she was there, trying to reign in her thoughts, she lifted her arms up, placing her hands palm-down on the mat beside her head, arching her back as she went. She arched her back as much as she could, the vertebrae popping as she went…she loved that sound….her spine lining up. Then, without missing a beat she raised her legs over her head in an arch and slowly brought them around so she was in a standing position again. Clapping her hands loudly, loud music started to play. She had eclectic tastes in music, just as she did with everything else in her life apparently. Some of the music selections were of a classical nature, some had been from the 50’s and 60’s, and still other selections were of a more modern hard rock/heavy metal variety; it wouldn’t have been completely out of the question to hear the odd rap tune if the mood struck her. 

After her initial movement, Barbary began giving her gym mat a fit; she was tumbling as hard and fast as she could go in any given direction. Cartwheels, handsprings, you name it. There were no flourishes; she wasn’t in it for showmanship. Barbary was trying to rattle the damned nightmare loose. 

She had been concentrating so hard on what she was doing and figuring out which moves to use next that she did not notice the people watching her. Almost suddenly, at least to any outsider, she changed her mind abruptly and ran over, hitting a spring board, tackling the uneven bars. The people who had come to the door stood watching her were quite fascinated. 

Mary, John, and Sherlock watched from just inside the door for quite some time. Since Sherlock now knew without a shadow of doubt that Barbary worked for his brother, it seemed wrong to keep him in the dark about much about her career and training….he still had no clue how Mycroft had come to know someone like Barbary or anything more about her private life than he had already learned, but this was a start. It would at least shut him up for maybe five minutes. So far he was too wrapped up watching her move to make an argument on anything. 

Mary, noticing Sherlock’s attention of Barbary, couldn’t resist. “She’s quite flexible, yeah?” 

“It would seem so,’ he never missed a beat; neither did he take his eyes off of Barbary to reply. John only grinned quietly to his wife. 

“We will eventually have to call time for her. She has been known to go at this until she gives out completely. She broke two ribs falling off once when she was completely exhausted. We don’t know what makes her do that. We will definitely have to stop her before she gets to the rings.”

They watched a little while longer. Apparently, the bars weren’t working for her today; she gave them up in favor of more tumbling. At one point she even began to do it with her eyes closed. Barbary had been working at everything so hard that she was positively dripping with sweat. Then there was a moment when she landed one move and she made a groan of agony, immediately rolling to the mat and grabbing her right ankle. 

“Damn it!” 

John, ever the doctor, rushed forward without even thinking about it, Mary at his side. As he reached out for Barbary’s foot, the girl flinched. Sherlock clapped, causing the music to stop. 

“John, hello. What is everyone doing here? Apparently, I’m….”

“A danger to yourself?” Sherlock supplied.

“Some days.” Barbary agreed. 

She lay back on the mat to letting John check her ankle; the sweat was rolling into the dip of her neck and pooling, her tank top was sticking to her every curve. Sherlock couldn’t take his eyes off of her in the least. 

He would know every curve of that body if it killed him. 

“Does anything else hurt?” John asked looking her over. 

“Just my wrist, but I have a brace for that in my flat.” 

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” 

“No, Mary, there are enough people out there waiting to do that for me.”

“On the contrary,’ another voice sounded.

“Mycroft.” 

“Brother.” The snide look on Mycroft’s face had Sherlock already fighting to reign in his urge to punch him right in the nose. “Have that nightmare again did you?” 

Barbary glared at him before ordering him to shut up; and Mycroft surprised everyone by doing as she asked. “Besides, what are you doing here anyway? I didn’t think my humble abode was worthy of your   
presence.” 

“You know very well I have been here plenty of times.”

“The ankle is sprained, that’s for sure.” John spoke aloud as he felt around her ankle. 

Sherlock hadn’t said much since Mycroft showed up; he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of Barbary. She was glistening; and even though it was merely perspiration, Sherlock couldn’t help but notice how seeing her in such a state made him feel. This woman was going to be the death of him he was sure of it. 

Once John had made his assessment, Barbary sat up and began trying to figure out how she was going to stand. Sherlock came over and made designs on picking her up to carry her, but she shrugged him off.  
“I’ll…I’ll be fine, we have a lift you know.” Barbary’s eyes flitted between Sherlock and Mycroft. 

Sherlock knew then that Mycroft had definitely said something to her to make her pull away from him. He made a mental note to loosen no less than four of Mycroft’s teeth. 

Mary leaned down and offered Barbary a hand, which was accepted, helping the smaller woman up. Once upright, Barbary balanced mainly on her left foot, hopping out of the gym gracefully enough making her way towards the lift. 

“So, to what do I owe this pleasure so early in the bleeding morning?”

“We have news on who was behind your attack….” Mycroft started.

“Yes, yes….Kostya from that assignment in Macedonia. That’s what you came all the way out here to tell me? That can’t be all of the news.”

“We seem to think his arrival is funded by Khaled this time around.”

Barbary stopped in front of the lift before raising the door on it….all the color drained from her face and she started to tremble slightly. Her four visitors could actually hear her swallow. Getting into the lift and   
waiting for the others, she lowered the door. 

“No worries, yeah. You can all sit and have a bite of breakfast or some tea while I grab a shower. Then we can try talking about this a little more.” 

Once they were in Barbary’s flat she made her way to her room to gather some clothes before grabbing her shower. Mary asked her if she needed help getting back and forth. Barbary shrugged her off and began to hobble around on her bum ankle as best she could. Her shower was quick. She needed to get off of this ankle, get it wrapped, and put some ice on it; right now it was throbbing like a son of a bitch. 

As soon as Barbary had the bathroom door shut and everybody could hear the shower running, Mary lit into Mycroft. 

“You have got to pull her off of this assignment!” Mary had walked over to the kitchen area and started sorting some tea and a light breakfast for everybody; knowing her way around Barbary’s kitchen made things go a lot faster. While she was at it she began to put together an ice pack for Barbary, letting it sit in the freezer while she finished her other duties. Mycroft followed her; he thought it better not to have this argument too loudly on the off chance that Barbary heard them.

“I will do nothing of the sort.” Mycroft looked at Mary as though she had grown two extra heads. “These people are targeting Sherlock as well as Barbary and possibly even myself. She is the best asset we have for the assignment.”

“Take her off Mycroft! You have to. How many times do you think you can send her into the lion’s den before she doesn’t come back?”

“She’s always made it out in one piece before.”

“I wasn’t talking about getting her back physically. She’s been doing this for nearly twenty-five years Mycroft. How many agents have you lost in that length of time? How many of them were lost at their own hands?   
She’s seen too much. Do you even know, or care….? Of course you don’t, forgive me for asking. And, Khaled? You know very well what he’s capable of. Do you have any idea what he did to her the last time their   
paths crossed?”

“Please, enlighten me.” Mycroft looked rather haughty, and Mary didn’t miss the sarcastic tone of his voice.

“Did you know that she has a daughter that would be 15 now? Even before the Macedonia job ten years ago, you had her in Cambodia….Khaled showed up there….”

“Why was I not informed?”

“We had no warning of his involvement. After we learned of Khaled being there we wanted to pull out; dealing with Khaled on the best of days is unstable. But, Barbary wouldn’t close up the assignment. She kept saying that you wanted a resolution to the whole mess regardless. Then, he found out she was there. She separated herself from the rest of us; I think to save us….he got his hands on her and that was when she went missing for that year. I couldn’t get to her. We didn’t hear a word from her; there was no communication, no chatter….we thought she was gone for good that time. By the time she did come back to us, you know what she was like! You know what shape she was in! How can you feed her to the wolves again knowing what will happen?” Mary had seemed distressed at the thought of not being able to save her friend. 

“Why was I not informed immediately?” Mycroft was getting angry. He did not like being left out of the loop when it concerned an important assignment. And, in all honesty, he did care for Barbary quite a lot actually. When he found her in the streets of Morocco that day, dying, begging him to at least save the life of her baby…he made her his priority. He found out she had next to no education. She could not read or write; basic mathematics escaped her…physically she was in terrible condition. She was starving, entirely too thin for someone that was going to have a baby. Some of her bones had been broken and healed; although they actually looked like she had received a fair degree of medical care. He had her placed in a private facility of his choosing. He made sure that she got world class medical care that would save her life and the life of her unborn baby. Amid complications, the baby was delivered two and a half months early. It was a boy; she named him Tarek….that was before she flat lined for the second time since she had been in Mycroft’s custody. Those early days were touch and go. She had been shot in the chest from mere feet away by Khaled himself. It was unusual for him to do his own dirty work, so this young woman must have done something terribly naughty to warrant the almighty Khaled to come down off of his high horse and take matters into his own hands. Mycroft knew, based on that fact alone, that this girl was special. Somehow, over the years, their working relationship had twisted into something neither one of them recognized. But he still cared for this girl.   
John and Sherlock had stayed silent watching the exchange between Mary and Mycroft; it was as if they had forgotten there were two other people in the room momentarily. 

“What about her daughter? Mary, what happened to her daughter?” John enquired, breaking the spell.

“Khaled is nothing if not vicious. And, he really has it out for Barbary anyway. At some point during the year he had her, she became pregnant by him….again. Once she had the baby, a girl, Khaled took it from her; he barely gave the doctor time to cut the umbilical cord before he took the baby. I don’t know if she has ever seen the child or not. I don’t even know if the child is still alive or not. Those of us who have tried to find out have met with dead ends.”

“She has never mentioned anything about this to me.” Mycroft seemed put out at the idea that information had been kept from him, especially about an asset that meant as much to him and the agency as Barbary. 

“She begged me to keep my mouth shut and not tell you all the things she told me. She begged me Mycroft. She already knows of the low opinion you seem to have of her, though none of us can figure out why. But she was terrified that, if you knew what had happened, your opinion of her would drop even lower than it already was. And you had already broken her heart.”

They continued to argue back and forth. Barbary was apparently one of Mary’s best friends from back during her days as an agent; although John and Sherlock could only speculate about this seeing as Mary had only rarely ever made fleeting references to her life back then, and certainly never made any lengthy discussions on the subject. Mary loved Barbary like a sister, and she was tired of watching her get walked all over by the likes of Mycroft Holmes.

After quickly washing her hair and carefully washing her body (seeing as she had to be able to balance), she shut the water off and grabbed her towel. After she dried off she wrapped her towel around her body and began to try to figure out how to get out of the tub; no matter how you sliced it, she would have to put some weight on her sprained ankle if she did it alone. 

“Mary, can you help me please?” Mary heard Barbary call from the bathroom. Before she could set anything down and go check on her, Sherlock had already made his way to the bathroom door. 

“Oh this won’t be good.” Mary mumbled so that only Mycroft could hear her.

Barbary had stood in the tub and waited on Mary, but when she heard the door open and she saw Sherlock, she started shaking her head ‘no’. 

“Come on, you need help getting out of the shower. It’s much easier for me to lift you out than it is for Mary; you’re both similar in size.” 

“I want Mary to help.” Barbary had done her best to back against the wall of the bathtub. Sherlock didn’t miss the body language. She wasn’t really comfortable with him being so close to her now; why?

“She’s handling tea and breakfast; you will have to accept my help.” 

Barbary stood there in the tub for a couple of moments, looking off to the side and down at the floor all at the same time, almost weighing her options. 

“You can’t put very much weight on that sprained ankle, which you will have to do no matter how you try to go about this on your own. You will only succeed in falling on the floor, possibly injuring yourself   
further.” 

Barbary squinted at Sherlock, weighing her options; knowing he was right, she finally nodded allowing him to step closer to help her. He stepped forward and scooped her out of the tub; one arm behind her back,   
the other behind her knees, and carried her into the living room. All she could do was wrap an arm around his neck to hold on; she hadn’t expected quite this scenario. Her free hand kept a tight hold on her towel.   
Sherlock was having issues himself, though he tried to at least school his face into a normal appearance. She was light, weighed practically nothing. How exactly did Mycroft expect her to protect anybody? A hard wind would knock her over. And the curves he remembered from his last night here. Damn it! Why did Mycroft have to be such a….pompous ass? Sherlock walked with her over to the door to her sleeping area; but he just stood there for a second, as if he was remembering the last time he had been there.

“You can put me down now, if you don’t mind.” Barbary looked up at him carefully, as if she might have said the wrong thing. Reluctantly, Sherlock carefully set her down, backing away. “Thank you,’ it was so quietly said that a normal human being would have missed it. Sherlock didn’t; nor did he miss the sad look in her eye. Something wasn’t quite right, of that much he was sure. What it was, he couldn’t say; but he was always missing something. 

Mycroft didn’t miss the way Barbary looked at Sherlock either. He began to wonder if he hadn’t spoken a bit prematurely about how she would treat his brother once the circumstances changed. There was little that could be done now except to watch the drama unfold. He had planted the seed of doubt within Sherlock; once Sherlock got an idea, you couldn’t derail his train of thought if you tried. But that look in Barbary’s eyes….she knew what was coming….she knew….and she was just going to take it; no matter what she would play her part. Mycroft noticed that once she had uttered the near silent ‘Thank you’ and Sherlock walked away, Barbary turned to make her way into her little room, eyes on the floor, head slowly shaking from side to side. Unless his ears were failing him, he would swear he heard her give a sigh of resignation; she knew this was what her life was going to be until the day she died, it was never going to change no matter what she did. A sigh that said that she gave up even trying to understand it or change it; from now on she just didn’t care what happened to her. Mycroft stopped everything he was doing or thinking for just that moment in time…He knew what he just saw. He watched her come to the sad realization that her life wasn’t worth the effort; that no matter what she did or how hard she tried she was always going to be somebody’s property and would never be allowed to be more than that. He saw her give up on herself. She gave up on herself, not on the assignment. She was too much of a professional to give up on the assignment; but as far as her own life….Barbary no longer cared what happened to her. Mycroft couldn’t tell her how wrong she was of course; it would ruin his stone cold façade that he was an uncaring machine, much like most people thought of Sherlock. Difference was Mycroft had to form that shell to be able to do his job to the utmost.   
But he resolved right then and there to try to set things right the only way he knew how.

“I cannot stay for breakfast I’m afraid. Duty calls. I apologize, Mary, for putting you to any inconvenience. But I must be off. Sherlock, John, I will be seeing you soon. Mary, I hope Lucy is doing well.” With a glare from Mary, who had seen the exact same interaction, and thought the exact same as Mycroft, he was out of the door as dramatically as only a Holmes can be.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Once in his car that had been waiting downstairs, Mycroft placed a call; a woman with a burnished voice answered.

“Anthea, I need you to pull any missing persons cases from the United States from the year 1983 where the possible victim would have been blonde women in their early-mid 20s and would have been between 172-180cm and approximately 60kg. And I am guessing the woman would have been of British birth and only move to the US after a marriage. Also, I will need you to also begin looking up missing persons reports from around, let’s say 1986/87. The parameters for the victims in this case would be a young girl, dark hair, 76-92cm, and approximately 11-13kg.” 

“Are you finally going to try to solve the riddle then?”

“I will discuss this with you later my dear. For now, just get the information that you can find together please.” 

“Of course sir, as always.” 

With that brief call, Mycroft ended his call to Anthea. He began thinking that, perhaps Mary was right, he had taken serious advantage of Barbary. Perhaps he had been somewhat of a tyrant where she was concerned. Maybe he couldn’t stop whatever plans were boiling in Sherlock’s brain, but Mycroft Holmes could at least put every available resource at his disposal into the effort of finding out who Barbary was.   
He had picked that name for her. Barbary. It meant ‘Stranger’, the surname he gave her was insignificant at this point. He could have picked something mundane, like Barbara….the meaning of the name was the same. But, he did not find her under mundane circumstances. She was 15, pregnant, dying in the streets of Marrakech, Morocco, bleeding from a gun-shot wound to the general chest area. She had escaped from one of the most dangerous slave/sex traffickers in the world only after having fought her way free, killing his identical twin brother in the process, by slitting the man’s throat no less. This young woman was anything but ordinary. 

He rested his head against the car seat, wracking his brain, blinded suddenly by a memory he had thought long deleted. He sat upright barking instructions at the driver to deliver him to the address of his family’s old city house. Several photographs that, at the time, seemed completely without context in his life suddenly became utterly important to the task at hand….figuring out who this girl was after all this time. Perhaps the answer had been under his nose and he had never been bothered to pay attention.


	11. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft has more thinking to do. He finds some old photographs that lead him on his search. Someone takes pot shots at the 'Iceman'. Tarek leads him to safety.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The surname Halliwell...I actually borrowed that from my own family, sort of. My grandmother's maiden name was Hollowell. The description of Lady Halliwell...I thought about my mom's looks when she was younger (in her 20s)...she was 5'8, blonde, blue eyes...she was really pretty actually. Then I just basically aged her a bit (in the photos I picture her being well on her way into her 60s). As far as the sort of poise and class I was aiming for, I was thinking along the lines of Dame Maggie Smith or Dame Judi Dench. The old man, I was kind of aiming for an older Cary Grant sort of thing. I'm not really sure where I got the Duquesne name from....but I ran with it. And I made the young girl in the photos sound tiny for her age because in some things that I have read or learned about children who have certain childhood difficulties (trying sooo hard to not give away too much at once), it seems that their rough childhoods take a toll on them physiologically (meaning that it almost sort of stunts their growth in a way, due in large part because of the way the abuse/trauma might effect overall brain chemistry/function etc). And when you think about a kid who grew up in a life where they were going through that as well as not being fed or cared for properly otherwise, I think most people picture a child who is small for their age with or without the scientific studies.

No, his little assassin was anything but ordinary. And, Mary was right on a great many points. But, Mycroft had been blissfully ignorant of it until today. Everything in his relationship with Barbary had always been status quo. He was the boss, he gave her the assignment, and she fulfilled it; end of. He had never needed to coddle the others, so he didn’t understand until Mary began pointing out a few truths, why it was such a big deal with Barbary. He had overlooked the fact that most of his agents come willingly into the career. They are singled out for their expertise in certain fields or their performance at their previous profession, and they are given a choice of whether they want to join or not. Barbary had been bought and sold on the black market for ages, and had only come to Mycroft’s attention as a fluke really. And, although he had given her a world class education and combat training, he had since neglected to see to it that she was cared for. She had even trusted her son’s training to him; allowing Tarek to follow in her footsteps when he was old enough to make his own decisions. And what had Mycroft done to deserve her trust? Aside, from saving her life…nothing much.

Now, he had Anthea on the trail to try to find out who Barbary’s mother might have been, and for that matter who Barbary used to be before she was Barbary. After all, she was someone’s child once upon a time.   
Surely there was someone out in the world that had missed her and loved her and wanted her back. He couldn’t believe that the girl was actually utterly alone in the world, save for her son.

Soon enough, maybe twenty-five minutes later (traffic had been snarled and the driver forced to take a detour), the black sedan pulled up in the car park for the large Holmes mansion; well the city house anyway.   
Mycroft gave the driver instructions to wait there and he would be out as soon as possible. 

Although Mycroft had an unexplainable urge to find those photographs, he took his time, carefully waltzing into the house that had belonged to his family generations. To most people this would seem a grand home; and if Mycroft was quite honest, it was enormous. But, compared to the country estate that they also maintained, this place would be considered almost more of guest quarters; the country estate was positively beyond words, even for a man like Mycroft. And, why his parents chose to live in the little cottage near the River Dart, Mycroft would never understand. Although, it was quite peaceful out there, and the city itself was quite nice…not London, but nice. But his parents had chosen a spot just out of the city limits and Mycroft had to admit to himself, grudgingly, that it was a lovely place. No matter about all of that just now.

Once inside the door of his family’s city dwelling, Mycroft changed completely, tossing his umbrella carelessly to the grounds and making a mad dash for the library. Once in the hallowed and quite room Mycroft began rifling through anything that looked like a photo album, finding nothing. Becoming frustrated he stopped and began to just look around the room, studying it. His eyes fell on a rather simple looking wooden box; though once you really looked, it wasn’t that simple, it was inlaid with various types of wood to create a myriad of colors with a bit of mother of pearl on the lid for decoration. The box was much like the girl in question; ordinary enough at first glance, but something entirely different once you looked closer. Carefully taking the box down from its shelf, Mycroft sat behind the desk in the library, taking a deep breath before opening it. 

Inside there were various letters that had been tied together with a deep purple satin ribbon; the handwriting on the envelopes was that of a woman. They were addressed from a place in Berkshire….the last name of the sender was Halliwell. 

‘Why is that familiar?’ Mycroft thought quietly to himself. He pulled out tickets that had been for some play ages ago that his parents had undoubtedly seen several times. He found an old photograph of his own   
parents with another couple of about the same age, maybe senior to Mr. and Mrs. Holmes by a few years. Studying that picture it struck Mycroft about this Halliwell lady. She had been a friend of his mother’s at some point. 

Yes, the Halliwells had been long time friends of the family as far back as anyone could remember. The lady had been a bit taller than average, slim build, carefully styled blonde hair, her make-up was always immaculate. And old man Halliwell was tall and distinguished looking with darker hair that had started going gray years ago, mainly close to the temples (just above his ears). But, for all that they looked the part of members of elite upper society, they had been actually quite normal. Unless you just knew them, you would think that they were any normal well off older couple; the idea that the lady was quite close friends with   
Her Majesty would never cross your mind. It was no surprise that they had become fast friends of the elder Holmes’.

After shuffling through a few pictures similar in nature to the first few that he found, Mycroft felt as though the world was conspiring against him. Suddenly though he came across several photos he hadn’t expected, merely hoped to find. There was a photo of a small girl. She was awfully small physically; if Mycroft had to judge she physically looked as though she was only three years old. It was likely a symptom of poor care and lack of proper feeding. 

One photo of the young girl was particularly of note. She was standing there, her saucer sized eyes looking at the camera, and there was weariness in them even though she seemed calm enough. Her hair was golden brown riot of ringlets that hung well past her shoulders, nearly to her waist. Her posture was seemed somewhat stilted. But that could have been down to the young boy with dark curly hair tugging on one of her curls.

Sherlock couldn’t have been more than eight years old, but he looked as though he was very nearly twice the young girl’s size and he had a handful of hair and was giving it a pretty smart tug. Knowing the age of Sherlock in the photograph helped Mycroft calculate that the young girl was likely five years of age at the time; and yet she was so tiny. Mycroft knew how tall Sherlock was at age 8, he had been privy to his brother’s medical records for years. Going on a rough estimate the young girl in the picture was the height (and very likely the weight) of your average two or three year old, but certainly not a five year old.  
‘A charmer even then it appears,’ Mycroft couldn’t help smiling to himself. Mycroft knew this was Barbary; the child in the photo had the same eyes and hair, and the fact that the size of the girl was about right….  
Digging through more of the pictures, Mycroft found more of Sherlock and the small girl together. In one of them the pair had apparently gotten up to some antics and was hiding just outside the room. Someone must have called their names, because they had been poking their heads around the corner while on their hands and knees; the little girl was closer to the floor and Sherlock was just slightly above her, being taller, the curls from both tumbling completely out of control.

There was a picture of the little girl by herself wearing a large pair of men’s shoes and a man’s sports coat. Mycroft remembered them as his father’s things. She had a mischievous smile on her face, a little dimple showing on her left cheek. Mycroft started going through some of the pictures that he had taken out that had the girl in them, flipping them over to see if any descriptions were written on the backs. He found nothing until he got to one of his father holding the small girl on his lap. The elder Holmes seemed to have been reading to the girl, and they both fell asleep, the girl on the old man’s lap, her head resting against his chest, his father’s book was perched precariously on his knee, his cheek resting on top of the girl’s head. Flipping the picture over he hoped for the best.  
**********Lila Duquesne-April 1984; came to London with Evelyn and Wallace   
Halliwell, her grandparents.

The handwriting was his mother’s. Barbary’s real name was Lila Duquesne; so somewhere in her family there was Norman extraction. That was interesting because, the Holmes family was also of Norman decent, on the mother’s side; he would have to investigate more. Mycroft stuck the photos back into the box and shut it, looking around to see if there was anything else he could find that would tell him more. Opening a drawer on the old desk Mycroft found yet another box, similar in size and design as the other, it must have been a set. Inside this second box was only one item; an old video cassette, the likes of which would have been used in a home video camera. 

Grabbing both boxes and tucking them under his arm, Mycroft made his way back through the living room and to the front door of the home, grabbing the discarded umbrella. As he carefully stepped outside of the house, he happened to check his surroundings; a man in Mycroft’s position always had to be aware of his surroundings. He practically ran the country, this is true. But, you can’t always count on others to see to your safety. Besides the possibility of being sold out, there was always basic human error. When he first stepped out of the house, Mycroft had noticed how quiet everything seemed; it was nothing that he could put his finger on, but there was just a crackle in the air. Momentarily he looked towards the black sedan that he frequented, checking the car. Looking in the front seat, he could see his driver, well what was left of him anyway; part of the man’s head was missing, around the area of the right temple. There was splatter on the passenger side window with bits of what looked like the poor man’s brain. The body was slumped over the console between the two front seats. Mycroft began backing up into the house immediately; as he did so, he heard a popping sound. 

‘Bullets?’ 

Diving to the floor, Mycroft slammed the door shut and reached for his phone. Staying close to the floor, he made his way to the ground level restroom; no windows, one way in, one way out. He fired off a text to   
Anthea. 

‘999. City house. Driver dead, shots fired. Am unharmed. MH 09:25, 13 Oct. 2015’.

‘Help is underway. Moments only. Sweep of area will be done. Check of CCTV in progress. A 09:26, 13 Oct. 2015’.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
13 Oct. 2015 08:00 

Breakfast had been good; or at least that’s what Mary and John would tell you. Sherlock never ate when he was on a case, and since he considered the dead cabbie in the burned out car a case…..Barbary hadn’t come out of her room once Sherlock carried her to the door, meaning in short, that she hadn’t eaten. By the time the half hour rolled around Mary and John decided that they needed to get to work. They were needed down at the surgery for a few hours to help out. Sherlock decided to leave with them to go to the morgue. He wanted to see if Molly might have found anything on the body that might help tighten up the case. Yes, he knew that the likely murderer was a man named Kostya that had a link to an assignment that involved both his brother and Barbary years earlier. But, Sherlock being Sherlock, he did not like lose ends.   
Sherlock only spent forty-five minutes at the morgue badgering Molly; there was nothing that she found on the body that was unusual. Any particulates were what you would expect to find in the trunk of any car, except charred. Damn!. This Kostya person was good; but if he had even half the training that Mycroft pours into his agents, then that would stand to reason, a good assassin did their best to leave no trace.   
At 09:15 in the morning Sherlock found himself bored. Taking a deep breath he hailed a cab and for some reason he could never explain, Sherlock gave the driver the address for Barbary’s flat. When he realized his mistake, he decided now was as good a time as any to put his plans into action. He would not be made a fool of. By the time he was through with Barbary she would regret the day she ever heard the name Sherlock Holmes.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
It didn’t seem like it was much longer than a few moments when Mycroft heard the door of the house being kicked in. He steadied his breathing, reaching for the gun he always had carefully concealed behind his suit jacket. Checking the clip, he held his breath, waiting. Seconds ticked by so slowly; each one seemed to stretch on for a year. Suddenly the door to the lavatory Mycroft was taking cover in was yanked open, Mycroft aiming carefully. Tarek carefully stuck his head in through the door. 

“Son of a….I could have blown your head off.”

“Hardly, sir; my reflexes are faster than your bullets. Besides, where would you be then? Come, Anthea says you asked for some help.”

“Yes, it seems as though we will need to fill a driver position.”

“I saw. I have some men doing a sweep of the buildings that are within range. In the meantime, come with me; I know another way out of here.”

“You’ve never been to this house before that I’m aware of.”

“No, but mama has. She has studied it…”

“Blueprints you mean…”

“No, the house itself. She comes here often enough. There is a secret passage that she told me about.”

“There is? I grew up in this house, well until I went away to school. How did I not know about this passage?”

“Secret passages are mama’s passion; you have to know where to look. Come. We have to get you back to Diogenes. There is a car waiting for us, but we have to go now. If you’re a good boy, one day I will tell you of the time I took her to Lyon for her birthday so she could see their Traboules. Lyon is marvelous, you should see it if you haven’t already. But, enough for now; we run short on time by sitting here.”

The young man helped Mycroft stand. Tarek noticed the boxes that Mycroft retrieved from the floor. 

“May I ask, sir, what are those?”

“A project I am working on….for your mother.” He watched Tarek’s face darken.

“Sir, I don’t ordinarily speak against you….one of mama’s rules. Whatever Mycroft asks, we do. But, don’t you think you’ve done enough damage assigning her to your brother?” 

“This is not about an assignment I want to put her on. I found something that may help explain who your mother really is. I can’t go into details just now. I want to take a closer look at the evidence. But, when I find   
out what I need to know, I want to pass the information on to your mother. It will be hers to do with as she pleases. I just thought it was high time that she know who she truly is. Besides, what do you mean? What damage do you speak of?”

“It’s nothing. We should go. Come now.”

“No. Just a minute,’ Mycroft stopped and grabbed the enormous young man by the arm, slowing his progress a bit. “You need to tell me what you meant.”

“Mama will kill me.’ Tarek mumbled to himself, shaking his head. “She loves your brother, has for years. But she knows you disapprove. She knows that she’s not ….. She thinks she isn’t good enough for the likes of   
him. You’ve set her up for a great fall, I think.”

“What do you mean by all of this?” 

“No, I’ve said too much already.”

“I need to know what exactly you mean.” 

“No matter what happens now, her loyalty to you is going to get her killed….and rather soon I fear. Now, no more talking, we must go.” 

Mycroft allowed himself to be led through his childhood home to what looked like an ordinary grandfather clock. Tarek opened the glass door and pulled a lever that an untrained eye would just barely make out   
and then proceeded to slide the entire clock carefully to the right, exposing an entryway. 

Taking in Mycroft’s astonished face, ‘Don’t worry, it’s likely that your parents didn’t even know about this. Though I’m sure your brother did. He strikes me as the type to go off on his on explorations. Come, this   
way.”

Tarek led Mycroft down a steep staircase and then a long narrow corridor. Once they finally came to the end they made their way up another staircase. Once they had exited the passage altogether, it became clear to Mycroft just where they were. 

“I see recognition on your face, sir.”

“We are in…”


	12. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft learns a bit more about our girl Barbary. Sherlock is Sherlock in a bath of 'Not Good'....Kostya shows his face at Diogenes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any (**) usually denotes conversations that the characters are having in their own minds (as is the case with this chapter) or in some instances it will denote text messages btwn characters since I can't get Italics or whatever to mark the changes. Thankx for holding on for the updates.
> 
> Also, I want to say that I am currently working on chapter 13, I'm about 1/2 way through it, but am just trying to make sure it's heading in the direction I want it to go.....doing some tweaking here and there...ya know, the usual.

“Yes, the Elizabeth Tower, home of Big Ben; one of mother’s favorite places. Soon we will be walking past King Richard I himself.” 

“Is this wise young man?”

“This is one of the safest buildings in all of Great Britain Mr. Holmes; home to Parliament. This is your kingdom, so to speak. You are a fairly recognizable figure here among your peers. Nobody will try anything here. Besides, as I said our old friend Ben is one of mother’s favorites. He would never let anything happen to you.” Tarek winked at Mycroft as if trying to make him understand some unspoken plan that had been  
cooked up. “Now come. I will see you to Diogenes and home and then stay with you until these bastards are stopped.”

They made their way towards the main entrance of the building as they continued to talk.

“Surely you have other work to do.”

“No sir. Mother would want me to handle your safety personally. For one thing, if something were to happen to you, in your position in the government, then it wouldn’t be long before the people at the root of the  
problem would go after Her Majesty and others. Protect you, protect the throne. At least it is one possible scenario.

"Here we are. Stay close to me as we make our way to the car.” 

Tarek carefully lead Mycroft to the dark colored sedan. 

“Get in.” Tarek ushered Mycroft into the car, Edward was already sitting in the back seat on the other side. 

“Edward, good to see you.”

“I am only here as a favor to our Poppet. If it were up to me you would be left to fend for yourself. But, Tarek requested our help.”

“Our help?” Mycroft said carefully.

“You might buckle up Master Holmes; it could be a bumpy ride.” Phillip winked at him puckishly from the driver’s seat. 

“Tarek, I would like to take my chances with the gunmen, thank you.” Mycroft began trying to get out of the car. The door locks clicked into place. 

“Master Holmes, we don’t like you, we barely respect you. But our Poppet would hunt us down like dogs if we fail in protecting you. You know what she is capable of; would you want her coming after you?” Edward  
grasped the man’s arm. 

“Mycroft, my friend, you’re stuck with us for now.” Tarek all but chuckled as he sat in the front passenger seat. 

Once everybody was safely in the car, Phillip made his way to Diogenes; Tarek keeping watch from the front seat, Edward from the back, guns at the ready. 

“Did I glimpse a fellow about the roofline?”

“I told you Mycroft. Big Ben would not allow something bad to happen to you. There were others as well.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Sherlock made his way back into the apartment building that housed Barbary’s flat. He noticed that the concierge station was unmanned; this was strange. Phillip and Edward seemed to be perennially behind the desk, greeting him as he entered. Something was going on, he knew that. He carefully made his way to the lift that would take him to his destination. 

Upon reaching Barbary’s flat, Sherlock was fairly satisfied that there was nothing terribly wrong. Perhaps Edward and Phillip had some work that actually needed doing. He just knew that he was this close and he was not backing out of his plan now. He could feel something twisting in his stomach; in a normal person he would assume that would be guilt….But Sherlock didn’t do feelings in the first place, so he just ignored it. 

He had not liked being told what to do by his brother of all people. Mycroft had only rarely done anything for Sherlock out of his own concern for Sherlock’s well-being. Most of Mycroft’s efforts to pull Sherlock’s strings had been for his own benefit. And now, suddenly, when sentiment was not a virtue, and love was a chemical defect anyway….NOW Mycroft gets bloody worried about how this will affect Sherlock? And to hear Mycroft tell it, Barbary was a woman of questionable morals anyway. He was well shod of ‘The Woman’ and he had no intentions of falling into another trap just because relationships and the trappings associated with one were not his area. 

No. He was going to rid himself of this nuisance, Barbary, once and for all. 

Picking the lock, Sherlock let himself in as quietly as possible. Upon doing so, he happened to notice Barbary tottering across the living room on some crutches he hadn’t noticed before. 

Hearing the door to her flat open and then shut so carefully, Barbary turned ever so slightly to see who the intruder was. 

“Oh, just you.” Noticing the look on Sherlock’s face, ‘these stay stashed in my cabinet in the bedroom. I’m….I’m accident prone.” 

“You hardly seem the type. More likely your assignments leave you in need of such apparatus.”

“If you want to crash, go for it. I need to get some water to take these pain killers. You have run of the place otherwise.”

Barbary never got the chance to continue over to the kitchen to get her drink; Sherlock had bolted the door behind him and made his way to her in just a few brisk steps. When Barbary felt the presence of somebody behind her she tried to turn around, but Sherlock’s closeness made her nearly topple over, which she would have had it not been for him grasping her left elbow. 

Before she could even form a question about what he was doing, Sherlock kept his hold on Barbary’s elbow, tugging her closer to him, grasping the back of her head with his own left hand. Without a second’s notice he had pressed his lips to hers. After making sure she had no intentions of pulling away anytime soon, Sherlock removed his right hand from where he had gripped her elbow and knocked away one of her crutches, wrapping his arm around her back to show that he would be all she needed to stay upright for the foreseeable future. As he began to shift her around he then kicked away her remaining crutch, leaving her completely dependent on him for her balance. 

Breathing was becoming quite tedious, but they needed air. As soon as Sherlock pulled mere millimeters away from her Barbary signaled her discomfort.

“I really need to take some pain killers, Sher….” 

Deciding he had to shut her up, Sherlock dove back into kissing her, slipping his tongue into her mouth quickly to keep her off of her game as much as he could. 

“With what I want to do to you, you’ll forget all about that ankle. Trust me” He gave her what he hoped was a seductive glance without giving away any part of his plan. While doing so, Sherlock lifted her by the hips  
indicating that she should wrap her legs around his waist. With that done, he carried her back to her bed, carefully climbing onto it with an arm still wrapped around her, barely breaking the kiss. Once she was comfortably placed he used one of his hands to trap both of her wrists above her head so he could use his free hand to remove the large sleep shirt that she had settled on for the day.

“When we were first together you seemed ashamed that I would take your clothes off.” It wasn’t a question, Sherlock was stating facts. 

And why is he talking? I must be losing my touch. “How many women have you ever been with that have scars from gun-shot wounds to the chest? Why should I be anything but?”

“But you lived,” he began to suck at her neck.

“For what though?” Barbary shrugged her shoulders a bit before pulling a hand free and pulling his face back to hers and kissing him deeply. She didn’t want to talk about it; none of that seemed to matter just now. 

Of course Sherlock was still deducing her….right up to the point in time when his brain stopped working. 

She had been assigned to protect him, possibly save his life, by Mycroft. She had a scar from a gun-shot wound that happened ages ago. According to the conversation that happened between Mary and Mycroft  
here earlier in the morning, Barbary has worked for Mycroft for quite some time. And Mycroft did say that this bit of trouble was down to some slave traders having been upset by some of Sherlock’s investigations, by both Holmes brothers actually. The only conclusion that Sherlock could possibly arrive at was that Barbary had, at one time, been property of some slave traders herself, possibly being shot during an escape attempt, and Mycroft saved her life. It was the quickest path from point A-point B. So, in effect, Barbary was a former victim of slave traders, shot, left for dead, life saved by Mycroft, forever after giving undying loyalty and devotion of sorts to the man that had saved her often to the detriment of her own health and life. But, if her own life meant so little to her, there had to be….Tarek. She was grateful to Mycroft for saving Tarek’s life. When Barbary first met Mycroft, she would still have been pregnant with her son; at least it was the most likely scenario. 

And then he happened to realize that her hand had slid beyond the barrier of his waist band and he felt her small hand close around him. He broke the kiss gasping for air; the feel of her cool hands on his hot skin was almost jarring for him. 

“You were thinking too much. Stop it.” Barbary grinned at him as she leaned up a bit and started kissing him, gliding her lips down his throat, sucking on the place where the collar bone made a connection with his neck. While he was distracted she began unbuttoning his purple dress shirt, pushing his coat off as she went. Still distracted, Barbary was able to flip them over so that she was on top of him, straddling his waist.  
She leaned over him to continue kissing down his neck but, before she did so, Sherlock noticed the look on her face. It was a strange bit of recognition, as if she was seeing him, really seeing him for the first time…..as if she had only been seeing what she wanted to see up to that moment, and suddenly the blinders were off. But, also, there was a hint of sadness that he remembered seeing earlier that morning. It was as if she knew something was about to happen and there was no way to stop it. It must be bad, judging by the depth of feeling in her eyes. That look, the emotions in it, they were fleeting at best. Soon she was kissing and licking her way down his torso as she exposed more of his flesh, still tugging his shirt and coat off. 

Smiling up at him from her current position near the fly of his trousers she finally spoke what was on her mind. 

“Last time was all about me. This time….You will never forget me.”

“I do delete things that I find unnecessary. Surely Mary has warned you.”

“You won’t be able to delete what I am going to do to you Mr. Holmes. Of that I’m sure.” 

That was the last bit of talking she seemed inclined to partake in for the foreseeable future. That wasn’t deduction. It was simple fact. Barbary had set to work using her teeth to unzip his trousers and then the button fastening them shut, winking as she did so. 

Barbary couldn’t have been more right about Sherlock never deleting this from his mind palace. It was going right next to the bit about her wrapped in the towel as he helped her out of the shower this morning….and that was right next to the bit when she handed him a copy of ‘War and Peace’ and seeing her on stage in that ridiculous costume. His bloody mind palace was turning into a can of rubbish by the minute. This woman was going to be the death of him one day. 

“Barbary, you’ll want to st..’ he was already so bloody close to losing all control. 

She pulled her mouth off of him slowly, “Hardly.” There was an impish smile and a wink and she went back to her task. She pulled herself away once more, ‘I owe you, remember.” 

At that phrase, Sherlock jerked her up from her work and forced her back on the bed, ‘What do you mean by that?” He sounded fierce. 

“Your last overnighter here left me an extremely happy woman. I know I can be just as good for you.” 

Sherlock had to shake the cobwebs out of his brain. Moriarty is dead, has been for so long now. 

Maybe one day he would believe his own line of bull shit. Moriarty was never really dead. Even after watching the man shoot himself in the face, the evil deeds he did would live on in the minds of those that had been sucked into his vortex. 

Seeing the look on Barbary’s face though, Sherlock realized that she meant precisely what she had said. There didn’t seem to be a hidden agenda, at least as far as Moriarty was concerned. He quickly stripped the rest of their clothes tossing them away with carelessness and before long found himself buried completely inside of her in one swift thrust; as he did so, he had leaned forward and pressed their lips together, his tongue going slowly and deeply into Barbary’s mouth, catching the moan that was trying desperately to escape her. 

She tasted as heavenly as he remembered and they fit snugly together. At that moment in time his self-imposed vendetta against her was temporarily forgotten. He was only able to keep his entire weight from crushing her into the mattress with his elbows, otherwise he was as physically close to her as he could get. His strokes varied from short, yet powerful thrusts pulling shouts of pleasure from her to longer slower strokes that left her whimpering. 

Barbary tried to flip them over so she could take over control yet again. Sherlock wouldn’t allow that. He grabbed her legs and pulled them up so that her feet rested around his shoulders and continued to go deeper into her. She settled for cupping his face in her hands and pulling him down for another kiss. 

“Sherlock…” she sighed against his lips, pulling him closer to her. “Sherlock, you’re going to be the death of me I think.” 

Something in her words sent a peculiar feeling through him; perhaps it was the fact that he had just thought the exact same thing about her mere moments ago, or it could have been the tone of her voice….there was a mild undercurrent of sexual innuendo, but in large part there was regret or some sort of unspoken anguish. However, this revelation as not enough to keep him from finishing what he had started. Knowing he was close, he buried his face in the crook of her neck and bit down rather harshly, sucking the skin between his teeth. With that and one more sharp thrust they came together. His face never left the crook of her neck, and the piercing sound of his name leaving her lips….she had warned him that he would never be able to delete this moment from his mind palace. She was right. He would never…not that he was sure he wanted to. Of course there was always the chance that the inability to delete this would come back to haunt him; there was always a chance. 

Soon after, they both fell asleep. Sherlock hadn’t even been able to shift his weight onto the bed, he rested his body upon hers, his head against her chest, face still buried in the crook of her neck…oh and then there was the fact that he was still buried inside of her. For all the ways in which he was about to hurt her, he could not bring himself to be separated from her just yet. Sherlock never said he wasn’t selfish. He was, he was quite selfish. He had fallen under her spell, just as Mycroft had predicted. And before he would allow her to crush him or make him look like a fool he was going to do it to her. Sherlock was not a man that gave in to feelings or sentiment; but when he did, he did not like being left with egg on his face. For her part, Barbary’s right arm wrapped around him, her right hand had been stroking through his hair, the left resting on the bed to the side of his body, a glock wrapped in the hand. Even as she pretended to sleep she was keeping her promise to Mycroft….protect Sherlock at all cost. She couldn’t be sure if Sherlock had been followed back to her flat or not, or if Kostya would just get bored and come looking for him anyway. She had only pretended to fall asleep. Barbary rested her chin against Sherlock’s curly topped head. She knew Sherlock was completely asleep judging by his breathing levels and the fact that his pulse gave it away when she checked. 

Listening to him breathing as he slept, Barbary’s heart silently fractured. The break wouldn’t come yet, no. That would happen later. These were mere fractures for now; this was going to lead up to the break that would likely kill her. Tears came then, quietly, just like the fissures in her heart. She was careful to sob quietly and tried not to let the sobs cause her body to shake; she couldn’t allow her feelings or sentiment to wake him.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
“Sir, I have the files you asked me to find.”

“Thank you Anthea. Leave them on my desk please. I’ll call if there’s anything else.” 

“Yes sir, of course.” 

Mycroft Holmes stood at the window behind his desk looking out over the streets of London from three floors up. The day was slightly cloudy with a chance of showers later in the evening. He contemplated what he might find in the files once he started looking, what actions he would have to take to right the wrongs that had been visited on Barbary for years. He hoped by doing so that he would be able to correct his own mistakes with her care over the years. After sighing tiredly, he sat down at his desk and began flipping through the files that his assistant had left for him. 

According to the first file Evelyn and Wallace Halliwell had one daughter, Imogene. She had married a wealthy young American man, Samuel Chapel. She went missing, according to the file, sometime around 1982, late in the year apparently; it seemed as though most people assumed she had run off. That was the story that Samuel had told most people around town…that the rigors of raising a toddler had been too much for the young woman and she had disappeared, leaving him to raise their daughter. Upon further digging it was found that she had never actually disappeared. It seemed as though her husband had used his particular influence to have her committed to a psychiatric hospital. Samuel Chapel had apparently told the staff that the young mother had become a danger to their small daughter, a three year old named Lila (who was close to four), showing the authorities bruises that the girl had sustained (which had likely been caused by him). Samuel had thrown enough money at the establishment that he could be assured that she would never be allowed to leave. Since then it appears as though she had been kept doped to the gills, many of the drugs causing hallucinations which in turn gave the quacks working at the facility every excuse to give her more medication. It seemed that Imogene was still living at the facility. Mycroft made a mental note to remedy this situation, Imogene Chapel would be a free woman by tomorrow morning at the very latest and put on a plane and brought home to London where she belonged. He would reunite her with her daughter if it was the last thing he did. 

Further research of the files showed that after her mother’s ‘disappearance’ Lila had been left living in that house with her father. There had been next to nothing in the files about any abuse. There was the odd mention of rare hospital visits; one for a broken arm, another time the little girl needed stitches above her left eye…according to the file she had been running through the house and fallen, giving herself a gash above her eye….That must explain the scar above her eye. Mycroft had always wondered about that. Another trip to the hospital for a broken rib…..there were only a couple more mentions of injuries, however no outward mention of abuse was made, it was all put down to the girl being a clumsy child. Further fact checking proved that the physician that had attended to the small child had once been high school friends with Sam Chapel and that they had kept in touch throughout university. Another phone call to be made; two doctors left without a practice before the end of business today, and in all likelihood, a mental hospital shut down at least for the foreseeable future, if not for good, until it could be staffed with reliable people. 

All of this took place in the little girl’s first four years of life. The year that she turned five, her grandparents apparently made a plea to Sam Chapel to allow them to bring the girl to London with them for some time; they used the excuse that they had wanted to spend time with their granddaughter since their daughter had gone missing. In reality, based on other things Mycroft had read, they were trying to use the time to get the child away from her father permanently and track down what had happened to their daughter Imogene. Things did not go the way they had hoped. At the end of the month they had to return the child to her father. Immediately they began petitioning the courts of England to intervene and get the child back. They had done everything they could short of getting the crown involved in the case, which they could have done considering the close personal friendship between Evelyn Halliwell and Her Majesty, but apparently others in the government were not all agreed on the idea. They couldn’t reconcile possibly starting an international incident over one tiny child. Times were different now. Mycroft Holmes was at the helm of this branch of government. Barbary….Lila…was no longer a tiny child with nothing to bargain with. She was one of the top agents of MI-6, a world class assassin...she had done work to protect members of the royal family and others among the monarchy and nobility before and they knew her to be one of the best. Now…  
Now, if Mycroft ordered it, there would be a world war if necessary to clean up this mess. And Mycroft would not hesitate to use everything in his power to do so; not only were these people coming after his agent, but also his brother. 

If Sherlock was willing to jump off of a building for the only three people he was known to care about, then it went without saying that Mycroft was willing instigate World War III if it was necessary to save the life of his brother and Sherlock’s childhood…What had she been to Sherlock? A friend?  
Within less than six months after the child….Lila, her name was Lila….within six months after Lila was returned to her father in America, she too went missing. She had only been four years old, where would a four year old disappear to? And why was there only a cursory investigation? The only thing the police files seemed to say about the child’s disappearance was that it appeared that someone had snatched the girl from a store she had been visiting with her father. Mycroft knew from studying statistics that stranger abductions were actually quite rare, typically the worst danger a child faced came from someone that they knew. Mycroft got on the phone to his assistant. 

“Yes sir?”

“I need whatever information that you can find on one Samuel Chapel; that means everything. I want to know if he has so much as a parking ticket. And do get me any record of his financials. I also need anything that you can find on where he might be today.”

“Of course sir. I will get whatever I find to you as quickly as possible.” 

Mycroft began to wonder if it was possible that Samuel Chapel had sold his own daughter as a slave to these traffickers just to keep his in-laws from ever getting her and to thwart any effort on their parts to track down what had happened to Imogene. From what Mycroft was to understand about the man’s finances so far, he didn’t actually need the money. No matter. He would simply have his people track down Samuel Chapel and keep eyes on him every moment possible; he had acquaintances in America that he could call on for aid if necessary. The man would be in his late sixties perhaps. Most people of that age weren’t usually harmful; but, if Samuel Chapel was the monster that Mycroft suspected he was, then no chance could be spared, he would bear watching.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
When Sherlock woke up later that afternoon Barbary wasn’t anywhere near him. He sat up looking around, wiping his eyes to clear them of sleep, the sheet draped around his waist. Upon honing in on his surroundings Sherlock could hear water running in the bathroom; Barbary must have been brushing her teeth. He looked around a second more and realized that she left a note on the night table on one side of the bed. 

Tea and a light breakfast are ready in the kitchen…if you want it. B.

Sherlock got up, pulling on his pants and trousers, looking around for where his shirt might have landed in the commotion of last night. Barbary came out of the bathroom, it seems as though she had decided to forgo the crutches for limping carefully around the flat after all. Before turning around to look at her, Sherlock smiled to himself smugly, having come to a conclusion on what to do to sever ties with this woman.  
Reaching into his trouser pocket his hand came into contact with some money that he usually kept in there in case of incidentals (i.e. running into a member of his homeless network or needing money for a spur of the moment cab ride). There had to be fifty pounds there. As he walked, shirtless, into the living room he took the money out of his pocket, getting closer to Barbary. 

“Here, I would like you to have this. Last night was incredible.” His face remained placid, as if this was a normal conversation. 

Barbary carefully turned around looking to see what he was talking about. Seeing the money in his hand, she looked him in the eye for a second. 

Sherlock saw what he might have considered actual pain in her eyes, but the look only lasted a split second as she reached out her hand taking the money. The look on her face became contemplative as she brought the money closer to herself looking at it as if considering the amount for a moment. 

“I’m sorry Sherlock.” Barbary looked up at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Mycroft has already paid for services rendered.” Suddenly she threw the money back in Sherlock’s face; if it had been a stone, it would have put out his eye, before storming out of her flat the best she could with a sprained ankle. 

As she exited through the door of the flat, Sherlock would almost swear that he heard her actually sobbing. He knew that was ridiculous; they weren’t really in a relationship anyway, why should she care what he had to say or think. 

Once back in the bedroom he found his shirt, putting it on and making sure it was properly buttoned before grabbing his Belstaff. Upon running his fingers through his hair, he felt that his hair seemed to be damp. 

**Funny, I haven’t showered**. 

Turning around he looked towards the still opened door of the flat where he had just watched Barbary make her escape. His eyebrows pinched together as he tried to figure out what was going on. He would have to talk to John and Mary about…OK, maybe not Mary, she did shoot him once to protect herself against John finding out about her past. Sherlock shuddered to think about what she would do to him if she found out what he had said or done to upset Barbary in such a way. But John…definitely talk to John…Perhaps Lestrade. Maybe the two of them can help him figure out what he had done wrong.

As it was he got the rest of his things together and began to leave the flat and make his way back to Baker Street. Luckily, Barbary had left the money behind so he could pay the cab driver.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
“Barbary, when you get this, call me immediately. There are some things we need to discuss.”

Mycroft was worried; this was the fifth time that he had tried reaching Barbary, it was the second time leaving a message. He couldn’t figure out where she was. He had heard some news about Kostya’s whereabouts and it concerned him. Currently, Mycroft was walking the halls of the third floor in the building that housed Diogenes, deep in thought. He had made the necessary phone calls to acquire the freedom of Barbary’s mother Imogene. He had also had the pleasure of having the license of a certain doctor revoked that had overlooked or buried signs of child abuse; as it was the man was being escorted out of the hospital and into a non-descript government vehicle. There were actually two doctors in two separate government cars that were going to be brought to England sent to a private facility to be housed until such time as Mycroft could clear some space on his schedule to “speak” to them.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
A short time later, Barbary made her way through the halls of Diogenes following behind the man that had greeted her at the door with a bag slung over her shoulder. Ordinarily women weren’t allowed here, but this was Barbary….Mycroft had already alerted them that if she showed up to give her whatever she asked for. 

Letting her into Mr. Holmes’ office, the gentleman opened the door and allowed her to enter ahead of him. 

“Will you need any tea or something stronger madam?” 

“No sir, thank you though.” She gave the man a slight smile, it seemed as though that small gesture took all the effort she had left. 

He noticed her looking around, admiring the books, her face betraying her professionalism, she was upset. Her eyes were swollen and red. Her face was still pink from crying. Her posture was stooped with the effort of maintaining this façade of being strong. 

“Alright madam. Well, if you would like to have a seat, I will make sure that Master Holmes will be with you shortly.” The man bowed to her as he left, shutting the door. 

Barbary swung the bag down off of her shoulder, dropping it to the floor, looking around again at some of the books that her hands just itched to take down to read. 

**Not my things. I mustn’t touch them, they don’t belong to me**. She had to keep reminding herself over and over again. Her eyes came to rest on a leather wing backed chair that sat in front of the fire place of the office a bit to the left. She made her way to the chair, dragging her bag behind her. Before she could plant herself in the seat, there was a voice from nowhere. 

“Thank you for making this so convenient.” 

Without flinching, Barbary brought her glock up, pointing it in the direction of Kostya who was standing by an open door at the opposite end of Mycroft’s office. 

“I had originally come here to cause Mycroft some slight trouble. Oh, don’t look like that. I wasn’t going to kill him. Not today anyhow. But instead I will give you a bit of friendly information. I was going to hold on to this, but…. I think you and I are much the same actually.”

“We are nothing alike. You murder people for money, you’re a gun for hire.”

“What are you darling? Mycroft pays you to eliminate targets. It must confuse you that suddenly he has you protecting one.”

“Say what you have to say and leave. You have no business even breathing the same air as a man like Mycroft Holmes.” 

“You could be a little more polite than all of that. I am all that stands between you and Khaled. You know how badly he wants you back. And you know what will happen if you make him come to collect you. Does  
collateral damage mean anything to you at all?” 

“You’re right. I apologize. Please continue.” She arched her left eyebrow at him before lowering her gun, tucking it into her trouser waist, sitting carefully in the chair crossing her legs. “Do sit.”

“I think I will stand. I can’t really stay long. What I wanted to tell you was that Khaled has hired more men like me. It’s really more like a small regiment in truth.” 

Barbary sat up, listening a little more closely, ‘What are they planning?”

“I can’t give details.” 

“Been kept out of the loop I see.”

“Apparently mercenaries aren’t seen as very trustworthy. What I have been able to find out is that they will be targeting an elderly couple.” Kostya was raising his eyebrows, waiting for Barbary to react to his information. 

“So. How has that got anything to do with Mycroft or me?”

Kostya walked over to the coffee table sitting between the two matching wing backed chairs, tossing two photographs onto the table top. Barbary saw the pictures; Kostya knew exactly when it dawned on her who the people were, she got that disturbed look on her face. 

“Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, the elder. Khaled will use any means necessary to strike out at you and both Holmes brothers. This is what he has come up with. He knows how you are. This is the quickest way to control you. He knows your pressure points. Go after either Holmes boy and you will get some decent results. Go after you and the Holmes boys will snap like rubber bands. Use the parents, and he gets all three of you. You will come to the rescue of the parents, the Holmes boys will come to your rescue.”

“You’re wrong about most of that. For one thing, the Holmes brothers are not like normal people. They don’t do caring and sentiment like the rest of the population. They are of insane levels of intelligence. They consider their parents to be ordinary like everyone else and that it is a burden for them to carry through their lives. And besides that, even if they had any sort of care for their parents, what makes you think they would lift a finger for me? In case you haven’t noticed, Mycroft is the one that sends me into these assignments. And Sherlock….He’s made his opinion of me perfectly clear as of late. I mean nothing to him. And really, why are you even telling me all of this?”

“As I have said, I believe that we are a lot alike; more than you care to realize I’m sure. I lost my family when I was a boy, under extreme circumstances. Imagine what I could have been like if I had a normal childhood. Imagine what your life had been like if you had been granted a normal childhood. Suffice it to say, we would not be sitting here having this conversation right now. You would have never been sold to those men. You would never have been shot in the chest and you would never have met the Holmes brothers. You can’t tell me you haven’t wondered what it would have been like to grow up with normal parents, marry a normal man and have your average number of children and a dog named Spot.” 

“Normal people are boring.” 

Kostya chuckled briefly, smiling at Barbary, ‘You’ve been spending too much time around the Holmes boys.”

“You know that if Khaled finds out what you’ve done that he will kill you.”

“Yes, that is why I have already arranged my passage out of England.” 

“You won’t be able to run far enough to get away from him. Look at me after all. Twenty-five years later and I am still under his shadow.” 

“No matter. I will simply get as far as I can and when the time to die comes, I will do so with a smile on my face. Now, I need to be going. Just because I have accepted death in any form it may take, doesn’t mean I  
want it to happen so soon. I also wanted to say goodbye, seeing as this is the last time we will ever see each other. You were a worthy opponent. I don’t think any other could have matched me move for move over all these years. Sometimes I catch myself wondering what we could have achieved together, had circumstances been different for both of us. Nothing can be done for it now. You went your way and I went mine.  
If you chose to believe my information and you do take on the safety of the Holmes parents, be careful. And take this.” Kostya handed her a nice dagger. “It has kept me safe all of these years against you, so it has to be worth something. I got it off of a shop owner in Cambodia a long time ago. He was a mysterious little fellow. I have been back many times since and have never been able to locate him; he does nice work, all hand-made items. You remember that job?” Kostya smiled at her before heading for the door from which he came. 

“Kostya!”

“Yes?”

“Watch your back. Be careful.” Barbary wouldn’t turn to look at him, she was afraid to give herself away. It had been a hard day; her nerves were frayed at best. 

Instead of waiting on Mycroft, Barbary decided to leave, go to Bart’s to see how Yasmina was fitting in watching over Molly, and then find the pub that was quickest to get to from there. It had been a long day; if there was one thing that she had picked up over the years that would come in handy, it was her alcohol tolerance.


	13. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap! You'll understand by the end of the chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any paragraphs with (**) to the sides of them were originally typed up in Italics and were supposed to be flashbacks of a sort....just a heads up to anyone not familiar with the way I do it yet.

The day was fading into evening. It had to be going on 21:00. Barbary had found this lovely little pub, a couple hundred years old, if you were to believe what you were told about it. The name had something to do with meters? She might have known when she walked in here, but four hours later and more than a few pints, Barbary couldn’t tell you what planet she was on. 

Currently, she was sitting at a table, alone. Perhaps to say she was actually sitting was being kind; right now, Barbary was slumped in the seat, barely able to focus on keeping her balance. She had handed the bar tender a wad of money and told him to keep the drinks coming until it ran out. 

Before stopping at the pub she had gone by St. Bart’s to check in and see how Dr. Hooper was fairing with her new ‘assistant’. In all honesty, the assistant was that young girl Yasmina that was going to marry Barbary’s son, Tarek. When she and Tarek had met NSY and Sher....that bloody detective out by the river, Tarek had stepped away briefly to make the phone call that would arrange Yasmina’s arrival in London. 

Yasmina’s father was a man that most people only knew as Piri. The only ones who knew his real name might have been his own parents and perhaps his wife at one time. He was a friend that Barbary had made during some time spent in Istanbul. He was a handsome devil and a good man with a killer sense of humor. Piri’s wife….Barbary set them up together. Well, she would take the credit for it. Her name was Puja. 

**She had been one of the first girls that Barbary had saved during her early days as an agent with MI-6. If Barbary was remembering it correctly, Puja had been maybe 16. Her family had been from a desperately poor village in India and given her over to some people claiming that they would see to it that she got into good schools in England and become a doctor. It was the same tired old trick the traffickers played on hundreds of thousands of poor villagers in third world nations across the globe. But it worked. The traffickers would offer enough money that would feed the family for at least a month, but in terms of equality with the Euro or the American dollar it would be mere pennies. They would get the child and whisk her (or him in some rare cases) away with smiles and promises. As soon as the child was out of reach of her family she was crammed into the back of a truck with dozens of other girls and sent to the nearest port and then loaded, along with the other children into shipping containers and sent all over the world.   
When Barbary found Puja, she had to physically carry the girl. She had been flung into a pit with others; some dead, some not. The traffickers had caught wind of the raid somehow and when they could not gather enough of the girls together quickly enough, they started killing them and flinging them into open pits…although some were still alive…and then setting the pits on fire. It was an effective technique used over centuries by various groups to get rid of their enemies or victims; never with more shocking clarity as when the Nazis employed the method to dispose of the Jews when clearing Concentration Camps.   
Barbary had entered the room, seeing the pit. She felt her heart plummet, it didn’t look like any of the girls were alive. She was about to move on to another room to perform a sweep when she heard a small voice. It was really faint, more of a moan or groan for help than anything. 

She went back over to the pit; it was almost too much to bear to see the faces and mangled bodies of the girls lying there, dead. She saw faint movement and ran to the area of the pit that was closest to the spot. It was a girl, left alive! Barbary had to crawl across some of the dead girls to reach her. She felt horrible about it, she couldn’t stop crying and it became hard to see through the tears. The only comfort that she took in this act was that at least she could try to save this one girl….if she could do that, save the girl and get her away from this place and on to a better life, then these other poor souls could find some measure of rest.   
It took some doing, but after some struggling she got to the girl and pulled her back across the bodies and out of the pit. Barbary was so tired; she had been working this assignment for weeks with very little sleep. She had to physically fight ten different men in hand to hand combat on her way to this place. She was losing blood herself. Shutting all of this out she hoisted the young girl up over her shoulders in a fireman’s   
carry; it was the only way she would be able to get very far, the girl was nearly the same size.**

As Barbary took another drink, she tried remembering the time she spent watching over Puja while she was in the hospital. She never left the girl’s side. That was the first time she could ever remember telling Mycroft to piss off.

**Almost as soon as they had arrived back at base with the survivors, and everyone had been taken care of medically speaking, Mycroft was dead set on sending Barbary on another mission within less than seventy-two hours. 

Barbary didn’t feel right leaving the girl, Puja. What if she woke up in a strange place with no familiar faces around her? Barbary remembered what that was like. It was terrifying. When she had gone through that, waking up in some strange hospital with nobody around that she recognized, she was terrified for a moment that she had been recaptured….or worse that the ones who had captured her would be worse than the ones she had just fought her way free from. She had ripped the IVs out of her arms and tried pulling the wires lose that had been responsible for helping her breathe. She had been in such a blind panic to get away; it had taken Mycroft multiple tries to get her attention to calm her down. 

She couldn’t leave this girl to that same fate. Barbary for once ignored a direct order from Mycroft, telling him in no uncertain terms to stick his orders up his ass and proceeded to take her seat next to the girl’s bedside.**

Some of the traffickers that hadn’t gotten caught in the net had come back around looking for their merchandise and would stop at almost nothing to get back what they could salvage. As soon as Puja was able to leave the hospital, Barbary personally handled the arrangements for her to be taken care of by Piri. 

Over time, Piri and Puja came to care for one another. By the time Puja was 19 she had decided she wanted to marry Piri, and it didn’t take Piri long to ask her either, it was no matter that the groom was nearly 15 years older than the bride. They cared deeply for each other. Puja loved Piri more than anything in life. He had made her feel like she really had a home for once. The longer Puja stayed with Piri, she began doing things around the house, to make it feel more like home. She cooked; Piri loved her cooking, he even helped her learn how to make more things when she expressed an interest. She kept everything neat and tidy. And she had proved her worth at protecting Piri and his home as much as he protected her. 

There had been days when someone of a dubious nature would come by the place. Piri knew most people in his neighborhood; he lived in one of the older districts of the city of Istanbul. Most of the neighbors had families that had lived there for generations. Piri knew them, and they knew him. They knew him to be a kindly book vendor that just so happened to know a thing or two about self-defense and martial arts. And his stall doubled as a place for people like Barbary to find safe passage. He was quick with a good joke, but if you needed him, he never hesitated to offer his help. 

One day in particular Piri had been away from home, attending his book stall. Some of those dubious people came by his home. Instead of finding Piri, they found Puja at home alone with the baby Yasmina. Puja had taken some training from Pirir and was able to fight them for a while, but eventually her efforts were not enough. Piri returned home sometime later; before he even opened the door he could hear Yasmina in her crib crying and screaming. Carefully entering the home, he found his wife dead in the floor in a pool of blood. He ran to check on Yasmina to find that she had been left unharmed, only scared. 

After that Piri gave up his book stall. He could not leave Yasmina alone and he trusted no one with her care in his absence. He was able to make a living by giving lessons in the martial arts of his people. A friend of his continued to run the book stall; the safe outpost had been in operation in one form or other since a time before the Crusades, and it would continue on for much longer.   
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
Barbary wanted to sit and drink a little longer but she suddenly realized that she no longer had any feelings in her hands. When she stood up to walk out she learned that her legs had also gone numb from intoxication when they buckled under her sending her to the ground. 

She laughed at her own predicament. There was no mirth in her laugh. It was the sad laughter of a woman with nearly nothing left to lose. She leaned over and just laid in the floor on her side, not caring a thing about the world around her any longer. 

Sitting at the bar, a tall man with strawberry blonde hair with a reasonable build stood making his way over to the fallen woman. 

“Come on then, up you go. The boss will likely think Christmas has come early this year, baggin’ you. If all goes well I will be getting a lovely bonus myself. Thank you kindly.”

Barbary offered no resistance whatsoever; she couldn’t even hold her own head up, so of course there’s no sort of defense she could mount against a man that had the build and strength of a well trained soldier. 

He tossed her into the back of the van after tying her hands together and then linking them with a bit of cord to her feet which were also tied together. After that it was a twenty-five minute drive to the property that was currently being used as base of operations. He pulled into what used to be a loading dock when this was an old warehouse, the door sliding shut behind him, concealing his vehicle. 

After parking up, the man got out and pulled the bundle that was Barbary from the van; she was still out of it, it would likely take most of the night and part of the next morning for the effects of that much alcohol to wear off. So what if there was a little something extra in the bottom of the glass courtesy of the bartender who owed some favors to a particular mastermind. 

“Boss, I brought the package.”

“Well, it’s about time Seb.”

“She drinks like a fish boss; I had to tell the guy to stop dosing her after the first four drinks. I made the assumption that it would suit your purposes that she would eventually come around. I know how you like to…play….with new toys.” 

“And she is a doll. I can see why so many are covetous of her.”

The slightly built man with the dead eyes signaled for the larger man, Seb, to man the camera and computer equipment. Next, he gave orders to a second man, Torrance, to get Barbary settled in a chair and rearrange her bindings to tie her to said chair. 

Smacking his hands together, “It’s time to send Mycroft Holmes a public service announcement about leaving his play things lying around. You never know who might stumble upon them. Torrance, I would like you to stay at hand, we may need to force the government’s hand in certain matters.”

“Yes sir, of course.”

“Seb,’ the man turned to his right hand man.

“Ready whenever you are sir.”

Stepping in front of the camera, the slight man put on his best game face. You could hardly fault him if he allowed a small smug grin to grace his face. It’s not every day an opportunity such as this, the chance to ruin both Holmes brothers at the same time, quite literally falls into your lap. 

Seb hit record, nodding to the man in charge that it was started.

“Hell-o Mycroft. Did you miss me?”


	14. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbary was captured. Mycroft welcomes a special guest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get 14 up. The way I had it written originally, it was longer, nearly double in length. But, even with the length, it didn't seem to flow very well past a certain point, so I reread it and cut it off. I will likely use the excess as part of chapter 15 when I get ready for that. As usual any (**) you see typically represents the inner thoughts of the characters, since I haven't figured out how to get Italics on this bad boy.

Recap++++ “Hell-o Mycroft. Did you miss me?”

Mycroft had decided to check his emails to see what the world news looked like. He found a link to a video labelled *Goldfish*. Clicking on it, a man came into focus…a man whose face nobody would ever forget.   
And that damned voice. Ice water started slowly flowing through Mycroft’s veins before the man could continue. 

The smaller man on camera continued talking and smiling smugly at the idea that he had one of Mycroft’s most prized possessions in his control. 

“Did you miss me? I know your brother did. Poor Sherlock, getting all bored with the average criminals that populate the Earth.   
I never did get a proper ‘thank you’ for saving him from that death march you sent him on. But don’t worry. I can’t say I’m surprised that I’m not included in your Christmas card list. I took the liberty of acquiring my own gift. 

She’s a rare gem is she not? I know your brother has been enamored with her as of late. Well, at least until yesterday, if I am to believe my information.” 

He stepped aside to give Mycroft a glimpse of his agent strapped to the chair. Barbary seemed mostly unconscious. 

As if knowing what Mycroft would be thinking, ‘Oh don’t worry about her. Yet. She just had a little too much to drink. I think Sebastian said that she had something like eight pints. Although, he had the bar tender to stop dosing her drinks after four of them. At first I was a little angry at his presumption. But, after I thought about it for a moment, I realized he had actually done me a favor. I have dreamed of an opportunity like this for longer than you can possibly imagine. 

No matter. Our time grows short for now. I just wanted to let you know I have her. She is unharmed, for now. I can’t promise she will stay that way for long. Sebastian has a type you know.   
If you want her back, you better find her before someone else does. I know who she is and I know what she is worth to the highest bidder. Because we are friends, I will give you twenty-four hours. Until then, we’re going to have a bit of fun. You do remember how much I like to play games? Ta-ta for now Mr. British Government.”

With that the screen went dark and the last glimpse that Mycroft had of Barbary was a daring look in her eye as she glared at Moriarty and Sebastian Moran. 

**’For the love of God, give me a couple hours head start before you provoke them girl.’**

Mycroft knew his prayer was falling on deaf ears. Barbary was going to push every button on Moriarty and Moran that she could find within the next 24 hours. It’s what she did. He just hoped that she understood that Moriarty wasn’t the same as the targets she went after in her assignments. 

Sitting at his desk, Mycroft rested his head in his hands. Moriarty had Barbary. Mycroft debated on who to call…Mary or Tarek. If he called Tarek, the boy might go off half-cocked and get himself into some major trouble. And that just wouldn’t do. Part of the reason that Barbary had even taken Mycroft up on his offer to join the agency was out of her gratitude for Mycroft saving her life and thereby saving Tarek’s life before he was born; Mycroft couldn’t repay that by leading the boy into certain danger. 

On the other hand, if he called Mary and had to tell her what was going on, she just might shoot him. He had no reason to doubt this, she shot Sherlock before trying to protect her secrets from John…or was it to protect John from her secrets?

He knew he should call Piri. He would be able to actually find her the fastest. The man had an uncanny ability. Sherlock was the master of deduction; Piri was like that with locating lost people. It was how he came by the nickname ‘Piri’….after Piri Reis, the man with that historic map. Between Piri’s skills at location and Mary’s skills with a gun, he expected to be able to free Barbary in no time. In the meantime, the intercom on his desk buzzed to life. 

“Sir, they’re here.”

“Ah, yes. Send the lady in first please.”

A few moments later Anthea lead an older looking woman in. She was maybe 172 cm tall with startling blue doe eyes. Her hair had once been a darker shade of blonde but was now accented with some gray. She was slim, but well built; some might even go as far as to say statuesque. Anthea opened the door to Mycrofts office for the lady to go in first and came in for a moment behind her. 

Smiling as pleasantly as he could, Mycroft greeted the lady, ‘You must be Imogene Chapel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of us that aren't on the Metric system, I have Barbary's mother's (Imogene's) height as 5'8" (or 172cm).


	15. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three men in a tub.

Recap++++ Smiling as pleasantly as he could, Mycroft greeted the lady, ‘You must be Imogene Chapel.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Halliwell. I’d prefer to go by my maiden name sir.”

“Yes, of course, as you wish. And please, you can call me Mycroft.”

“Who are you exactly and what do you want with me? That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Of course not. One moment. Anthea, see to it that our other guests are….comfortable. I will be with them as soon as is feasible.”

“Yes sir, right away. Ma’am, good day.”

The lady took a seat over near the fire place that had a fire going to knock the chill off; these old buildings were sort of drafty at times. She looked up at Mycroft with an arched eyebrow, waiting for his explanation. 

After making sure she was comfortably seated, Mycroft situated himself in the chair directly across from her. 

“Ms. Halliwell….I am assuming that *Ms* is how you’d like me to refer to you….’ Seeing her nod in agreement, ‘Madam, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I may have some information for you about your daughter.”  
Imogene stood abruptly.

“You lie. My daughter is dead. Has been for ages.” To look into her eyes anybody would swear that she believed those statements.

“On the contrary, she is quite alive. She has been in my employ for almost the last 25 years. I can show you proof if that is what you would like.”

“A little proof would be nice, sir. Please.” Imogene was nodding slowly as if considering Mycroft carefully. 

Mycroft walked over to a bookcase and took down the box he had brought from the Holmes’ London mansion. 

“Most of what is in this box is actually a bit old, I do have more recent photos, among other things, that I can bring out if you would like. And then there is this.” Mycroft handed her the video tape that he managed to find.

Imogene carefully took the box and tape from his long fingered hands and had begun sifting through the pictures.

“I remember these people. My mother and father spoke of them often when I was growing up. We spent time at each other’s homes. They had a place out near a river…..Dart…the River Dart. The older lady was into mathematics somehow.” Mycroft knew the precise moment that Imogene came across the photographs that showed her daughter. She went completely silent; except for the gasp of surprise you could have heard a  
pin drop. 

“She was so tiny, always so tiny. She was my little pixie. Who is that little boy in the photograph with her?” 

“That is my brother, Sherlock. The older couple is my parents. They still have the country house on the river, matter of fact that is where they prefer to stay these days since mummy retired from her work…the calmer life in the country seems to suit them better.” 

“My Lila and your brother were friends?”

“Hardly. My brother was an aloof, precocious child. He has never been agreeable to being friends with very many people at all. Currently, he has one person he considers his best friend, a man named John Watson, a former surgeon for Her Majesty’s army. But there are a few others that have found themselves drawn into his small circle. DI Lestrade who is a senior detective with NSY. Molly Hooper who is the lead pathologist at St. Barts hospital. John’s wife, Mary, who coincidentally is a close personal friend of your daughter. Ah, and Mrs. Hudson, his land lady that. Other than that there are very few people that could ever claim to have a place in Sherlock’s life. But, he was kind enough in his way to Lila. He was a child that always loved science and learning. His mind works a thousand miles a minute. As a boy he used to like to perform little childish experiments. Lila seems to have tolerated this with an unlimited amount of grace. Mother said once she caught Sherlock burning some of the ends of Lila’s hair and was going to scold him for it but Lila told her that she had agreed to participate. Sherlock wasn’t worried about being scolded, but he was mystified to say the least that anyone would actually do that for him. He has a habit of rubbing people the wrong way you see.” 

“How old was he in these photos?” 

“I think eight, or close to it.” 

“Lila would have been about four. You said you have more about her?” 

“Yes. Before I give you the current information on your daughter, I want to talk with you. I feel as though I should explain a bit about how I came to know your daughter. It will help you reacquaint yourself with her.”

“Please, go on.”

“I only wanted to be sure, because none of this is pleasant, and I wanted to soften the blow a bit.”

“Somehow I get the impression that you are not a man that suffers fools lightly.”

“Somehow I get the impression that you are no fool.”

“Please, go on, I’ve waited far too long to hear news of my daughter.”

“Very well. First of all, I regret to inform you that after you were separated from you daughter, at some point you husband made the decision to sell her to some unsavory people.”

“Human traffickers you mean?”

“Yes, quite.”

“That figures. He never really wanted children, especially not a girl. To him they are utterly useless with the exception of one thing.” She never really stopped looking at the photos of her daughter as a child while  
Mycroft spoke.

“My history with her began what seems like centuries ago. At the time I was rising in the ranks of my agency and I was on a particular assignment that took me to Morocco. We were chasing some traffickers and had  
been led to the city of Marrakesh. It was a stroke of luck that, on the very street that I was walking along, I ran into a girl. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen and I had found lying in the street bleeding, a gun-shot to the chest. I noticed immediately that she was pregnant as well, quite so. I had no idea how far along she was, but that was hardly the point. I could tell by some of the markings on her that she was one of the young women we had been sent to retrieve.”

He saw that Imogene had some questions and stopped momentarily to give her a moment to voice them.

“What agency? Preg…she has children?’ Here her voice grew quite venomous, ‘What markings?”

“Currently I hold a minor position in the British government. But at the time I was making ranks at MI-5, and then MI-6. These days they work for me. Yes, she has children; several if my sources are correct. And, there were some sort of tattoos that had been placed on her, there was even one brand that I had been made aware of; traffickers often use tattoos or branding to mark their property.

As I was saying, she was bleeding from a horrendous gun-shot wound to the chest. It appeared as though she had been running for her life or perhaps the life of her unborn child and hadn’t quite made it to freedom. I could still hear her pursuer yelling for her. She had managed to dodge out of his sight before collapsing, but I was not sure how long our luck would hold out. I radioed my men and told them where I was and to begin sweeping the general area for the traffickers. Meanwhile, I scooped the girl up and got her away from there as quickly as possible.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I managed to get her into hospital. Her heart stopped once on the way there. She went into labor, giving birth to a boy. According to the doctor she was approximately seven to eight months pregnant; the size of the baby made it hard to discern. He was a big baby. Sometime during the delivery her heart stopped again. She was revived and spent nearly a month in that hospital; after this time I had her shipped to a private hospital here. Some would say that I was out of my mind, but she was the only girl we knew of that had escaped; the intel that she could give us would be worth its weight in gold. Nearly ninety percent of the girls and young women that have been a part of the trafficking world don’t make it; most die of disease and torture, according to statistics. 

No, I knew Lila was different. I had her brought here to London. Once she was much more recovered I was able to speak to her more. Our early conversations didn’t consist of much more than listening to the sound of my own voice. For the longest time, Lila wouldn’t speak. I was not certain if that meant she couldn’t or just didn’t feel inclined. Over time, she began to carry her portion of our conversations a bit better. I found out that she was almost completely illiterate, was ignorant of basic education…as a result of her time in the world she had never been sent to a proper school.”

“My darlin’ girl.”

“Yes. I took the liberty of arranging her education. I found out at once that her ignorance was not because of a lack of intelligence. She soaked up all the information that was given to her like a sponge. In about a year, maybe slightly longer, she had roughly caught up to where her peers would be with their education.”

He watched Imogene’s face; she seemed genuinely relieved that someone had finally taken some trouble with Lila. 

“When she was of age and legally able to make her own decisions, I offered her a place in our agency. She jumped at the chance. Lila wanted to do something that would provide for her son; she named him Tarek.  
She knew that even if something were to happen to her as an agent, that there would be money in the bank for Tarek’s upkeep. She knew that he would get into some wonderful schools. I think she really did it all for him. One of her more selfless acts.”

“When will I be able to see her?”

“I’m working on that as we speak. I do want to be as honest as possible about what is going on. She was abducted late last night. The abductor sent me a video at the earliest possible moment.”

“What do you mean…”

“I viewed the video, first thing this morning, just before you got here. At that time, she was still alive. The abductor wants to use her as bait, I think.”

“Why? What on earth could he possibly want with her?”

“Do you know anything about a man named Moriarty?”

“Are you serious? I’ve been locked away in a loony bin for almost thirty years.”

“Yes. James Moriarty. He is THE criminal mastermind. He is the thinking man’s criminal. He has been after my brother and me for quite a few years. The last time he faced my brother, Sherlock, he forced Sherlock to commit suicide. If this was not done, he had given orders for the three people closest to Sherlock to be murdered by snipers.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about your brother.”

“If my brother had actually died, I would be touched by your thoughtfulness. As a matter of fact, we faked the suicide; the details are boring, but it involved Sherlock jumping from the roof of St. Barts hospital.  
Before Sherlock could do anything to stop him, Moriarty pulled out a gun and shot himself in the mouth. Or….that is what he wanted my brother to believe. It seems that they were evenly matched as far as ideas for  
faking death anyway.”

“So, your brother, Sherlock, is still alive?”

“Very much so. And I fear that Lila is very much in love with him. I will let you know that due to some of the events, certain trauma in her life, Lila has forgotten almost everything about her life from before. She  
doesn’t remember her own name and she doesn’t remember her real birthday. When I made a place for her in my agency, I named her. We had to have something to call her. I named her Barbary, a name that loosely translates into ‘Stranger’.”

“Well, it works, considering that you found her on the streets of Morocco. Makes sense. Why do you fear Lila being in love with your brother?”

“We gave her a manufactured identity. But madam, I want you to know, she barely remembers you. This is the only thing she has left of you.”

Mycroft produced the old faded photo of a young Barbary, then known as Lila, with her mother. Imogene saw how it had been creased over the years, apparently the girl had held this photo very dearly to her heart.

“And as to your question as to why I fear her loving Sherlock….I don’t really fear it per se. But I know how Sherlock is, how we both are. We don’t really get entangled in emotions or sentiment. It’s just not a regular part of who we are. Our parents were quite loving of us actually; but due to our work and the danger it puts us in almost daily, it is better that we stay separate from anything that could compromise us when at all possible. And also, I have never really known Lila to actually love anyone she came in contact with, the exception being her son, of course. I think she came close once. She had taken a sabbatical of sorts, let’s call it that. She had been living in Scotland for a time. We needed her there to keep an eye on some interests that we had at the time. During her time there, it seems, she met a man and settled down. They started a family. I almost pulled the plug on her work, but the ‘happy family’ routine was actually beneficial to our cause.” 

“Where are the man and her family now?”

“It ended rather poorly. They had been living in the highlands, a small village; rather quaint I must say. Some rather unsavory characters, Serbs, that wanted my attention, attacked them. Their cottage was burned to  
the ground with her husband and baby in it while they forced her to watch. Lila never gave them any useful information against me or the remainder of the British government. And they tortured her for hours just to be certain. 

After that time she never really bothered with relationships. I have never heard her speak of caring for anyone. 

But Lila loves Sherlock, nonetheless. I can tell. I only say that I fear it, because I don’t want it to wind up messy for either of them. If something were to happen to Sherlock, I don’t know what Lila would do. She can  
be a bit of a loose cannon; the very thing that makes her a wonderful asset could get her killed. And if Sherlock were to let himself care for her, only to have her leave him in some way….it would crush him. 

He tries to come across as cold and unfeeling, a bit of a machine in the emotional department. But, the truth is, when he does allow himself the ability to care for others, he cares so deeply. It is only having been hurt time and again that has made him behave the way he does. Losing her would nearly do him in I think.”

“What sort of work does she do for you in your agency?’ Seeing Mycroft’s look, ‘I know that you can’t give me details, I would never ask for that. But just a general idea…”

“I would send her on various assignments. Usually it is assignments that involve stopping other human trafficking rings like the one we saved her from. I find that she has a particular insight that is invaluable. That, and she is quite a good fighter. She is most proficient in hand to hand combat as well as with a blade, any blade. I have known of her to fight to the last man…or woman…standing. She has used what she knows about the proclivities of men to get close enough to a mark to kill them if needs be. And sometimes, it needed to be done. 

Most recently, I had assigned her to protect Sherlock. There was a case that he had worked, in conjunction with NSY, which wound up having some connections to a human trafficking ring. Something about bodies turning up in the river, I believe. In short, I have heard chatter that the ring leaders might make a move against Sherlock as well as his colleague John Watson. John has a family; along with his wife he has a young child, Lucy. It wouldn’t do to have something dreadful befall him. Not only would his family be distraught and likely put in danger, but his loss would cripple my brother, emotionally, I fear. 

As it turns out, one of the ring leaders coming after Sherlock is the same man that last….owned…Lila. His name is Khaled and he is the same man that shot her in the chest in the streets of Morocco. This means he is also aiming for me; I’m more of a bonus for him. Getting rid of both Holmes brothers for the price of one, I am sure nothing would suit him or other criminals of the world any better.  
I am sure this is where James Moriarty has come into the picture. Moriarty wants both Sherlock and me out of the picture as bad as Khaled does. And a man like Khaled is likely intelligent enough to know that a problem shared is a problem halved. If he can pay Moriarty enough, he will gain an ally of sorts. Although, I wouldn’t trust Moriarty; he’s proven himself changeable, quite unpredictable. “

“Her *real* purpose?”

“Mainly she is an assassin. As an agent, she is sent in to gather information for the British government. In doing so, she is also to ferret out anybody who means to do harm to Queen and country. Once that is ascertained she eliminates the threat.” 

“So, what now?”

“I have up to twenty-four hours to find her. Knowing how Moriarty works….You know, let’s just find her. I have some of my best people on this.”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Mycroft knew this woman wouldn’t stop until he was forth coming with the information she wanted.

“Moriarty is the kind of monster that will do everything he can think of to break her, as if she is a toy. And quite honestly, Lila, as an agent, is the kind of person who will push every button the man has…as well as the buttons of his associates…in an effort to cause them to make a mistake and give her an opening to do what she does best. But Moriarty isn’t the typical. He’s cerebral. He was able to drive my brother to jumping off of a building, and my brother isn’t one given to sentiment easily.” 

“Is he worse than the man you saved her from in the first place?”

“As far as his level of intelligence, yes. He has a devious mind that allows him limitless possibilities. But as far as their levels of cruelty, I believe that they are perfectly matched. This is why I worry. Lila has taken a lot over the years. She will not be easily broken. Just the other day, Mary was saying to me that she was actually worried about Lila’s state of mind. This is why I am throwing the full weight of my position in the government into getting her back.”

“I want to help in any way that I can.”

“I will let you know what I can when I can. I cannot, in good conscience send you in there to look for her. That would only get you killed.”

Mycroft was cut off by a knock on his office door. 

“Come in.” Looking up from Imogene, he sees Mary.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t realize you were with someone.”

“Don’t be silly. This is Imogene Halliwell. She is Barbary’s mother. Imogene, this young lady is Mary; we spoke of her briefly a few moments ago.”

Mycroft was taken by surprise momentarily when Mary rushed him and hugged him tightly and with quite a bit of affection, more than he imagined anyone would waste on him.

“Barbary’s….I’ve misjudged you a bit then it seems. Ma’am.”

“You don’t have to be so formal with me Mary. Mycroft was telling me that you are Lila’s friend.”

“Lila?”

“It seems as though Lila is Barbary’s real name.”

“You’ve really been digging into this, yeah. Thank you. I know how much it will mean to her.” 

“Mary, what’s wrong? It’s not like you to come looking for me.”

“I just received this text. It’s from Bar…Lila. It’s not her cell number though.”

“How do you know it’s from her then?”

“The code. I remember something about it from years ago; a conversation that we had.”

“A skip code?” 

“No, a rhyme of sorts.”

Pulling the text up on her phone screen, Mary showed it to Mycroft. 

Rub a dub dub, three men in a tub.  
And who do you think they be?  
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.  
Turn them out, knaves all three.

“That’s the 1830 version of the rhyme.”

“Yes, you know how she is about things.”

“Sorry.” 

Mycroft and Mary stopped and looked at Imogene

“I used to read her nursery rhymes when she was little. I don’t know why she picked this one.”

“It’s ok. There was a conversation I had with her once. We were on a….Wait, how much does she know Mycroft?”

“He told me Lila is an assassin. I didn’t ask for major details.”

“Alright, well….we had just wrapped a case. It was a difficult one….I’m sorry, I have to call her Barbary for now….”

“It’s fine, do go on.” 

“Barbary took the case hard. I don’t know why. But somehow or other the conversation turned to talking about things that truly terrified us. 

She’s not scared of much, your girl. Or at least she tries to act as though she isn’t. But she did say that there are only four people in the world that put the fear of God in her were the Butcher, the Baker, and the  
Candlestick Maker. I asked her what that meant.”

“Yes, Mary. I have less than twenty-four hours, currently, to find her. I’m in a bit of a time crunch.”

“You said four…but you only listed three….”

“When she was stuck with Khaled, prior to being recovered in Morocco, there were many men that worked for him or with him in various capacities. There was a doctor that worked for him, taking care of the girls I guess. He had lost his license to practice in the real medical world, so he sold his services to the black market. He sometimes looked to former Nazi doctors for inspiration. Barbary nicknamed him Mengele. He has a little game he used to like to play with the girls, although he rarely played it with Barbary on account she got good at it….”

“Mary.”

“He would use a chemical of some sort to temporarily blind them. This was only resorted to once a girl had gotten used to the treatment the men would subject them to. They could blind a girl temporarily and torture her for hours if they liked, and they wouldn’t even have to really restrain her. If she is blind she can’t see to run away. But Barbary got good at the game. She could tell you who was in the room by the sound of their footsteps, the smell of their cologne….or even their own body odor if there was any. She could tell you what devices they might be about to use to torture her based on her guess of who was in the room, the sounds the tools made, etc. If she knew enough of the variables, she could mentally prepare herself and she could take anything they gave her. They made a game out of her blindness and she made a game out of them. After this, the good doctor mostly left her alone, but by this time she had already earned pride of place with Khaled anyway.”

“What about the other three?” 

“Yes. Well, she nicknamed these three men according to the nursery rhyme. They each lived up to their titles. They had access to most any girl they chose, except for Barbary. They were only allowed to go so far with her, any further and Khaled would have opened a new hole in their heads. But where the other girls were concerned, they were allowed free reign. If a girl wasn’t fetching a high enough price or fell out of favor in some other way and needed to be disposed of, they called one of these men. They would ‘play’ with the girl until she was pitifully begging them for death. 

The Butcher had a tendency to cut up his victims, allowing them to die slowly, bleeding out.

The Baker thought nothing of throwing the girls into the furnace of whatever warehouse they were occupying while they were alive to burn to death. 

The Candlestick Maker….he would tie the girls up to a stake and set them on fire while they were still alive. 

Barbary told me there were many times that she and the other girls had to sit there and listen to the screams of the girls who were being killed.”

“She never once mentioned any of this when we first brought her back to London. She’s never brought this up.” 

“Any wonder? But I am trying to figure out why she would send this to me of all people and why now? Wait, what do you mean less than twenty-four hours to find her?”

Mycroft brought his laptop over to the coffee table and set it down, pressing play. Mary watched the video carefully. 

“Moriarty then? Who was manning the camera?”

“I assume it is his man. One Sebastian Moran.” 

“Damn!”

“Mary, what is it?”

“Moran is the Butcher!”


	16. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft and his people go to retrieve Barbary.

Dear God, He’s Gone and Done It: Chapter 16

Recap++++ “Moran is the Butcher!”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
With that Mary snatched her mobile out of her pocket and began sending rapid fire texts and running out of the building. 

Mycroft unlocked a drawer on his desk, withdrawing a small box, and using his thumb print he was able to open the lock on that box. Inside was a hand gun he kept for emergencies. Then he began to make his way out of the room, grabbing Imogene by the arm and pulling her along with him. 

“Where are you taking me?” 

“Anthea, have a car take Imogene to Baker St. I want her to spend time with Mrs. Hudson. Sherlock and John will be following us shortly. You ride with her, you stay with her. I want two other agents to join you there; Edward and Phillip, preferably.”

“Yes sir.”

“Mr. Holmes! What is going on?”

“I’m getting you to a place of relative safety. You have no worries, Anthea is highly trained; she was responsible for much of Lila’s early training when she first joined us. The other two agents are there as a safety net.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“No time. We have to find Lila and we have to do it now. Our timetable has just moved up substantially. Go with Anthea, please.” 

“Wait, sir….Mycroft.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know if it will be of any help right now or at any time in the future, but….Lila, when she was a girl she was almost deathly afraid of the dark and of snakes, and she isn’t big on spiders. Her father used that knowledge every chance he got to make her life hell. If this Moriarty person is half as evil as you claim, he will figure this out, and it may not take him long.”

“Thank you, Imogene.”

“You’ll bring her back to me right?”

“Of course I will. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” With that Mycroft gave Imogene a brief yet courteous bow and made his way to catch up with Mary. 

Mary stopped texting and opted for a phone call. It was apparently to their acquaintance, Piri. She was speaking rapid fire Turkish to the man before hanging up and turning to Mycroft as they made their way to the bunker below Diogenes. 

“John and Sherlock will join us in ten minutes, maybe less. I took the liberty of calling Lestrade and providing them a police escort; your brother will just have to suffer the panda car.”

“Right.” 

As soon as they entered the bunker, Mycroft walked over to the racks and pulled out a couple of scrolls; two road maps of London…one was for his use and one for Sherlock’s…and a stack of blue prints. He tossed these on a table and got to work unrolling one of the maps while Mary tacked the other one up on a wall, flicking on a lamp near the spot she chose. Mycroft got out some markers of varying colors and began to circle areas that he knew had old warehouse districts. He fired off a text to one of his minions to send him everything they could find of the security camera footage from around the pub where Bar….Lila had been last, and any from the surrounding area that they thought might be pertinent. 

Mary was sending and receiving texts from various sources that she had to try and track down where Lila had been taken and to see how much back up they could muster on such short notice.   
Sherlock burst through the door, John hustling behind him, with no warning. 

“Mycroft, what the hell is going on?”

One of the Ice Man’s goons shut the door after seeing that Sherlock and Dr. Watson were completely in the room. 

“Good of you to join us brother dear. Dr. Watson, I’d say good morning, but….”

“Mycroft.” The man in question heard the edge in Mary’s voice. 

“Yes, quite. Sherlock, I need for you and John to watch this carefully. Make no comments until after you have watched it all. The entire thing only takes about three and one half minutes. Sherlock, what I need from you specifically is anything you can tell me about the surroundings…the back ground noise that you might pick up, etc. John, I need a trained eye to tell me what you think of the condition of the subject.”

“Subject?”

“Yes.” With that Mycroft pressed the play button on the video and stepped away to give them both a moment to watch it; in the meantime he went back to studying the maps on his desk and flipping through the information that he had about any abandoned warehouses in each district. 

Less than five minutes later, John came up and started looking over the maps to see what work had been done already; Sherlock was rewinding the video to continue to study any details that he could find. 

“John, how did you find our friend to be?” Mycroft asked mildly curious.

“At the time that video was filmed she seemed to be alright. A bit intoxicated, but if she drank as much as Moriarty claims….I don’t know what they drugged her with, but the side effects seem mild enough. I didn’t notice any physical injuries. But the lighting was shit. What do you have going on here with the maps?” 

“Going through them marking off the warehouse districts…..”

“He won’t be that obvious. What has Barbary always wanted, more than anything?”

John and Mycroft looked at him blankly, thinking.

“Come on Mycroft, I expect better out of you. I know John can be excessively dull….”

“Oi!” 

“A family.”

“Thank you, Mary.”

“And love.” By the end of her statement, Mary was staring at Sherlock pointedly. 

Sherlock merely rolled his eyes at her blatant attempt to get under his skin.

“The point is he won’t take her to a cold warehouse. He would take her to an actual house; most likely abandoned, but not necessarily. Either way, the symbolism wouldn’t be lost on either one of them. Abandoned house would be a symbol of the abandonment in her life. A house that still has a family living in it, though likely on vacation, will have pictures on the walls, decorations etc., reminding her of the life she will probably never know. Likely Moriarty thinks it will be a cheap shot to her emotional well-being.” 

“Great, so now we have to focus on residential areas instead of industrial. This is going to be a needle in a haystack.” 

“Not necessarily John….” 

Before Sherlock could continue, there was a knock at the door to the bunker. 

“Come in,’ Mycroft answered carefully.

“I was told you needed me. I came directly here as soon as I landed.” Piri entered the room.

“Piri, good to see you. I am told that you will be the best chance we have to find Barbary.” 

“I can only do my best sir.” 

“What do you know so far?”

“Only what Mary relayed to me over the phone. That bastard, Moriarty, has her and that he has sent you a video message giving you up to twenty-four hours to find her or he will pass her on to the highest bidder.”

“Yes. Any thoughts?”

“Well, I know for a fact that Khaled is going to be the highest bidder. He’s going to make sure of that.’ Piri saw that Mycroft has arched a questioning eyebrow. “He intends to get rid of his competition.”

“How?”

“There will be a society function coming up soon, within the next three days. Khaled has people placed on the inside; kitchen staff, waiters, you name it. He has arranged to take out as many of them as he can through poisoning; it will likely be a poison that will metabolize quickly, so it would be next to impossible to identify on a tox-screen. For anyone that he can’t poison quietly, he has a few girls that can take care of loose ends.”

“Oh yes, I have heard. I am required to attend. Do you know any of the intended targets?”

“I know you and Sherlock are at the top of the list. Beyond that, my informant didn’t bother to say.”

“What else?”

“I have heard that he plans to do away with Moriarty when their partnership is over. He’s paid him a great sum of money to acquire the girl and keep his thumb on the two of you. But once Khaled gets what he wants, he will want to kill Moriarty.”

“I wish him luck with that.”

“Mary?” Piri looked at her oddly.

“It seems as though Moriarty has The Butcher working for him.”

“Oh that. Khaled lent out The Butcher’s services to Moriarty. Once their work is completed, that bastard goes back to Khaled. That will probably be another bone of contention between Khaled and Moriarty.   
Moriarty has grown quite attached to having such a blood thirsty demon on his payroll. He will likely want to make some sort of trade; Barbary for The Butcher. But, it will never happen. Khaled is not a man who likes to make deals such as this. He doesn’t do trading. Unless you plan to pay for what you want from him, he will not even look at you.”

“Do you have any idea where they might have taken Barbary?”

“I’d wager that they are somewhere in Earls Court, Collingham Gardens. Just upscale enough that Moriarty won’t break out in the poverty sweats anytime soon.” 

“You sure?” 

“If I didn’t know you better Mycroft, I would be hurt by that.” 

“Alright, which house is our best bet?”

“Number 5; the family is on holiday, Majorca I think. They left three days ago and will be gone for another week and a half.”

“Right. Well, then what are we waiting for?” 

“Back up. There are at least three men there; Moriarty, Moran, and a third man. I don’t know him, he’s new talent, I think he is called Torrance; but I don’t know what his skill set is yet. You won’t get very close with a man like Moran…The Butcher….looking down the scope of a gun. He will pick you off faster than you can snap you finger. We will need extra men. Some of them can go in from the back of the property. If we can get someone through the terrace on the third floor around back they can make an entrance through there. That will offer a bit of a distraction. Perhaps we can at least get rid of one of them that way. It would give the rest of our men a chance to go in through both entrances on the ground floor.” 

“Very well; we should begin to make our way to Number 5 Collingham then. I will personally lead the men taking the front entrance.”

“Sir…”

“Mycroft” 

Piri, Mary, John, and even Sherlock protested all at once.

“I want Moriarty dealt with; I don’t want him to be given the chance to escape and come back to haunt us later. 

“Hardly the point Mycroft.”

“Mary, in case you forgot, I started my early days as an agent. I do know how to take care of myself.” This was said as he checked the ammunition in his weapon and grabbed two more clips to boot. 

“Are we ready to go then?” Mycroft looked around him. “Sherlock, I want you and John to be there on site, but stay back by the vehicles. Once we neutralize the situation you will be called in to do what you do. John,   
I may need you to give her a quick check over until an ambulance arrives.”

“Mycroft, what about the society function? Should we not arrange to have Khaled’s people replaced somehow?”

“True.” With that he fired off a text to Anthea to get together with some other agents and go over the guest lists and the list of people and businesses who would be working the event. Mary turned to her phone and sent a text to Yasmina indicating that she should be extra careful to keep her eyes open at the morgue today and why. Of course the young lady protested and demanded that she should be there. Mary showed Piri the messages and Piri sent his daughter a text making sure that the order for her to stay with Molly Hooper in the morgue came not only from Mycroft Holmes but also from her father. She would never ignore an order from her father. 

After this everyone readied to go to Number 5 out at Collingham Gardens; on a good day it could take an average of nearly 15 minutes travel from Diogenes. With Mycroft Holmes at the helm it may take less; traffic lights would have to be altered at the very least.

With Mycroft’s magic wand they were able to make the trip in just under ten minutes, meeting their emergency response team nearly a block away from the house so they could discuss the tactics that they would use. With that being said, it had still been nearly ten hours from the time Mycroft received the video until the time they arrived on scene. The head of the response team went to argue with Mycroft about him leading the attack from the front, but at Mycroft’s withering glare, he decided it might be in his favor to shut his mouth and nod in agreement. 

One of the walkie-talkies that they had crackled to life; the man they had perched on a rooftop across the street from Number 5 had been checking things out with binoculars; both thermal and traditional sight.   
Suddenly apparently, the man on the roof saw someone leaving the house, alerting the rest of the team to the goings on. 

“Sir.”

“Yes,’ Mycroft was practically itching to know whatever had happened.

“Someone is leaving the premises; it looks to be Moran. I still see three people in the home. According to the heat signals I am guessing two men and one woman. Sir, the woman is not in a seated position. She is down.” 

“Thank you. Keep your eyes open. Watch your back.”

“Of course sir.” 

The decision was made that there had been enough talk and it was time to move in. Mycroft had to all but tie Sherlock down to get him to stay put. The only thing that kept him from it was the fact that Sherlock was a bit of an escape artist when it suited him and it would do no good except to waste more time. 

“Wait until we have cleared the area, I will let you know when it is safe to approach.”

“Mycroft…”

“Besides, from what I have been hearing she’s no longer any of your concern.” Sherlock would have advanced upon his brother had the arched eyebrow from Mycroft not stopped him in his tracks, leading him to believe that someone had told Mycroft about his argument with Barbary earlier. As he turned away to join the others the last thing that Mycroft was able to hear clearly at all was John’s voice asking Sherlock what on earth he had done to Barbary now. If he had time, Mycroft would love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation; John’s reactions to his brother’s social ineptness were usually quite priceless. 

As planned part of the squad went around the back of the property and had a couple of men scale the back terraces to go through the upper level. It would actually be a boon to their plans if either Moriarty or this   
Torrance fellow were to hear the men make some noise; it would cause them to become distracted and possibly split up. 

Inside the house, Moriarty gave Torrance the order to check the house again. He knew Mycroft Holmes wasn’t likely to leave one of his toys lying around for long and would be there at the fastest possible moment if he had been able to figure out where they were hiding.

Through his earpiece, Mycroft heard the lookout alert him to the fact that he could currently only see two heat signals coming from the same room. 

“I think it is one of the men and the heat signal that I believe to be the woman. I have lost the second man. Give me a moment to locate him.”

It only took a couple of seconds for the lookout person to find the third heat signal.

“Sir, it looks as though the third heat signal is coming up the stairs. The men need to get inside and get into position quickly to take him down.”

“Understood.” Mycroft had lifted his left wrist close to his mouth to return the message. With that he sent a message via hand signals to one of his men that were stations near the corner of the property so they could relay that to the other men. 

The men received the message and had fanned out all over one particular room; luckily it was a bit dark in there so they would be harder to spot. As Torrance rounded the corner he was taken down immediately, being thrown to the ground, and hogtied. As he was being secured, another man held a chloroformed rag against his mouth to keep him quiet and then gagged him. Once he was completely neutralized for the moment, they began making their way through the rest of the house room by room. 

As they made their sweep, the men could hear a woman’s voice scream. 

With that one of the men spoke into his wrist transmitter. 

“Sir, we have secured Torrance. But Moriarty has our agent. We just heard proof; she screamed.”

“Understood. Continue to sweep the rooms and await for further instructions.”

“Yes sir.”


	17. Dear God, He's Gone and Done It: Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft's raid on Moriarty's torture palace yields results.....none of it good.

“Sherlock…”

“Not now John.”

“Yes now! We’re not allowed to do anything until your brother gives us the ‘all clear’. Now, I want you to tell me what is behind that jab that Mycroft took at you.”

“I don’t know what he’s talking about. Barbary and I merely had an argument. I made her see that we are not….compatible.”

“What did you do Sherlock?” 

“How is this fault? It was Mycroft’s idea in the first place.”

“Barbary was in a pub, getting pissed, when she was drugged with something….a still unknown substance….and abducted. I know that Mycroft can be a dick, something that apparently is in your genetics, but I am pretty sure that whatever he told you to do did not involve sending one of his best assassins down the rabbit hole. Now, I will ask you again, and I want the truth this time or I will allow Mary to extract the information from you….What did you do or say to Barbary?”

“Mycroft made it clear that he thought it was best that I did not continue on with this woman. After breakfast I ran a few errands and then made my way back over to Barbary’s flat. We were intimate, and then I told her that we could not continue on as we were.”

“What were Mycroft’s exact words?”

“His words and I quote were ‘Stay away from her Sherlock, at least on the personal level. Otherwise, when this is over and she goes back to her normal self, you will be left in the dust. Do you think she is going to care a thing about you when she is assigned to a case in say, Cambodia or Kazakhstan? She will be on to her next mark and you will be just an after-thought. I am only thinking of your well-being. You know how you get when things don’t go your way. And if you were to carry on with this woman and she was to leave you behind when she moved on, how do you think you would handle that?’” 

“Alright. Nothing there that says ‘send my agent around the bend and get her kidnapped’. What did you do then?”

“When I returned to her flat, we wound up becoming….intimate, after which I handed her a stack of money which she promptly threw in my face and left, hobbling as fast as she could go, away from that place. As she got ready to leave she told me that she was sorry but that Mycroft had already paid her for services rendered.”

“Oh my God. I think I am going to have an aneurysm. You are an absolute cock! That girl loves you beyond all logical reasoning and you try to pay her like she was a whore. You and your brother are unbelievable. Quite frankly I am astonished that Mary hasn’t already ended any chance your parents have for grandchildren between the two of you.” 

“No John, Mycroft has paid her to see to my safety, there is a difference.” 

“Look. I shouldn’t be telling you this, and you better pray that Mary never finds out that I have or you will need a new blogger. You remember when Barbary came to Baker Street sick as a dog?”

“Yes.”

“According to Mary, sometime before that, apparently Barbary had a meeting with Mycroft. During this meeting, he all but called her a whore as well. From what I understand Barbary slapped him so hard his teeth  
rattled. After doing so she left his car and ran; his magic cameras couldn’t find her. Mary said she slept on the roof of a building for days with the weather being absolutely dreadful….you remember the rain.

“What did Mycroft say to her?”

“I don’t know why you care. But, Mycroft told her that he had assigned her to protect you, not fornicate with you, and that if you wanted her in your bed she would just go to you like she has all the others…basically throwing everything she has ever done in her face. He knows what her life was like before he found her. And don’t even get me started on what she has done in the name of Queen and country since she has been working for him. And he threw it right back in her face. And now you…..”

“I shall have to give her a medal, slapping Mycroft like that. It must have been so satisfying. I should do it again sometime myself.”

“Do you hear yourself? She loves you….”

“You know I don’t do…”

“Sentiment. You don’t know what she would do for you…what she has done for you…..all of her life.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

“From what Mary has explained to me, Barbary would do anything for you and Mycroft.” 

“What do you mean ‘what she has done for me?’ ”

“It’s not my story to tell Sherlock. But I will say this…..Mary is worried that this assignment will kill Barbary. Now, you better hope that she is in one piece when they pull her out of that house, otherwise Mary is going to come after you.”

John would have gladly kept tearing into Sherlock for days until they heard the scream. They both stopped arguing and looked toward the house. 

Mycroft’s voice crackled over the communications system, ‘John, I need you both to stay where you are.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sweeping the house in a way that was demanded by protocol looked good on paper. But, when one of your best friends and assassins screams like that….to hell with protocol. Mycroft and his crew made their way up the stairs and down the hall following the direction that the scream came from. Once they were in front of the door, Mycroft closed his eyes for just a second while one of the team members kicked in the door and everybody swung into place. 

“Oh look who came to the party. You’re good Mycroft, didn’t even take the entire 24 hours. But you know how changeable I am. I got tired of waiting, decided to step up the time table. Oh did I forget to tell you?” 

When Mycroft and the others had busted into the room Barbary had jumped, grabbing a sheet that had been close by and tried scooting out of the way; it was only marginally successful, her left wrist had a shackle around it that was then chained to the floor near the mattress she had been held down on. When Moriarty realized that she wasn’t listening to a word out of his mouth, he became completely incensed. 

“I said LOOK!” He was waving his gun at Mycroft and Mary, not even really paying attention the other team members. 

Barbary knew she had to keep him from aiming at Mycroft and Mary, and back on her. 

With a shaky voice Barbary tried her best pushing his buttons, ‘M-maybe you’re not really interesting enough to keep my attention. Maybe you’re not as important as you were three years ago. Nobody cares about James Moriarty anymore.” That did it. 

Moriarty stepped back over to her and began kicking her in her sides and stomach. Barbary, with the sheet wrapped around her, curled up to try to protect herself, crying out when there was a particularly brutal  
kick. 

“Let her go Moriarty.” Mycroft yelled. 

“I don’t think so. I have been paid an obscene amount of money by a particular client to help lighten their burden.” He grabbed for Barbary’s hair to pull her by his side, closer to where the chain hanging from her arm was attached to the floor. 

“Do tell,’ Mycroft was taking that tone that anyone who knew him would tell you that meant there was something about to happen; his eyes were taking on that ‘too calm’ gleam. 

“They want Sherlock, and you, off their backs. And I know that this little gem is one of your best assets. Could you imagine my surprise when I found out that they, my clients, kicked in a few extra dollars to get this one back? They paid top dollar for her, too.” He kept petting her hair. Barbary chanced a glance at Mary; Mary could see the look in her eye, telling her to take the shot if she got one. Barbary could feel her skin crawling; she wouldn’t dare make eye contact with Mycroft, she couldn’t. 

“Once I learned that they were willing to pay that much for my services, I could kill quite a few birds with this little stone. I knew I could get you here; you’ve invested a lot of time and money in training your little guard dog. I knew that you would come to collect her. You would undoubtedly ask for Sherlock’s help….to see what he could find out from the video. Am I right?” 

“Of course you are, but then you knew that.”

“Yes. I did. And I knew that Mary would come; Barbary is the sister she never had. She would never leave her to perish. And, between Mary and Sherlock, it was a given that the other gold fish…John would be coming as well. So, I can take out the two of you….Hey, Mycroft, how fast do you think that John and Sherlock would come running when they hear the gunshots?”

Moriarty raised his gun, pointing at Mycroft’s forehead; it was that moment that Barbary chose to make her move. She used her weight to yank away from Moriarty’s grip on her hair, catching him of balance a bit.  
Once he was able to gain his footing again he made his way to her, reaching for her. When Barbary realized that Moriarty was off balance she rolled over on her back, letting out a groan of pain, and got her knees to her chest; when Moriarty reached for her again, she used her feet to kick him away from her. This gave Mary and Mycroft the opening they needed. Both of them took shots at the demented man, unloading their clips. The consulting criminal fell to the floor, a look of disbelief was the last thing that passed over his face. 

Barbary was curled up in the floor, as far away from Moriarty as her chain would allow her to go, pulling the sheet around herself. Her breathing was a bit erratic and she was shaking a bit. She tried rolling over onto her side away from everybody else but the chain would only extend to a certain degree, leaving her arm extended out behind her. At this angle, Mycroft and his people could see blood seeping into the sheet.  
Mycroft made it to her side first, reaching out to try to touch her shoulder; Barbary tried to pull away from him, nearly pulling her arm out of the socket in the process. 

“Mycroft, back off, I’ll get her.” Mary stepped closer to them, pushing Mycroft out of the way. “Bar, I’m going to use these bolt cutters to cut the chain away, we can work on getting the shackle itself off when we get you out of here.” 

Barbary didn’t seem to notice. She was still having trouble breathing; whether that was from a physical injury or from panic, nobody could be sure yet. Mycroft carefully held his wrist up to his mouth and spoke carefully into the transmitter telling John and Sherlock it was safe to come in now. 

Once Mary got the chain cut away from the shackle, Barbary started to struggle to sit up and back away from the others. 

“No!”

“What is it Bar? He’s dead.” Mary looked deeply concerned for her friend. 

As John and Sherlock came into the room they saw Barbary leaning over Moriarty’s dead body checking for a pulse, sticking her finger to one of his bullet wounds, gouging it, to see if he would flinch from the pain. 

“NO!” 

“Barbary?”

“He didn’t have to suffer.” 

John stepped forward slowly, ‘Barbary, Mycroft and the others want me to take a look….” 

He was cut off by Barbary shaking her head no and backing away, ‘Make him leave,’ pointing at Sherlock. 

“What do I have to do with anything?”

“Go away!”

Barbary wheezed, her breathing becoming harder and harder. 

“Sherlock, come on. We’ll go back outside. Let John and Mary see to her for a moment.” Mycroft grabbed Sherlock by an elbow and began to lead him away. As they stepped away they could both hear Barbary pleading with John not to look; it was a pitiful sound really. Before Mycroft and Sherlock got very far away, John came racing up to them and let them know that he would not be able to attend to Barbary in this state.

“She’s too upset; her breathing is erratic at best. She’s panicking and I don’t want to upset her further. I can tell by the amount of blood that has soaked into the sheet that she needs a hospital and she needs it sooner rather than later. Mycroft…”

Mycroft made the announcement over the transmitter that they should send in the paramedics immediately; once they were in he waved them over in Barbary’s direction. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Barbary, in the meantime, had grabbed on to Mary’s hand and would not let her go. 

“I think it’s best if I ride with her John. It might help her stay a bit calmer if I’m there.” 

“Go ahead, we’ll meet you there.” 

The paramedics got her onto the stretcher and then proceeded to load her into the ambulance; Mycroft had smoothed the way allowing Mary to ride along. As she climbed into the ambulance, Mary reminded Mycroft to call over to the morgue and check on Molly and Yasmina. 

“Remember, Moran did leave and, as of right now, we have no intel on his whereabouts.” 

“Quite right.” Without a second thought Mycroft made the call, walking to the car that would take him as well as John and Sherlock to Barts. 

Once they were underway to the hospital and Mycroft had touched base with his people that were keeping an eye on the hospital, John asked him what news there had been.

“As of right now, Moran hasn’t been seen around Bart’s. I have some people checking the security footage to make sure nothing was missed; but currently Dr. Hooper is getting on nicely with her assistant. It seems as though the young lady, Yasmina is quite adept at her tasks, I think Dr. Hooper wishes to be able to keep her past her assignment.” 

By the time Mycroft’s driver was able to deliver the trio to the hospital, Barbary had already been taken back for her exams and the operations that it would take to stitch the injury to her side up and take care of any broken bones. Mary was sitting in one of the waiting room chairs with a cup of coffee, her clothes and hands were a bit bloody; she didn’t seem to notice, she was too deep in thought. 

“Mary.” No answer. 

John tried again, ‘Mary”. 

Upon hearing her name a second time, Mary snapped out of her daydream; the look on her face was worrisome to say the least.

“Mary what’s happened?” John asked urgently. 

“She lost consciousness on the way here; she’s lost quite a bit of blood. And so many broken bones….most of her fingers have been broken, I saw that myself. I don’t know what all else, I haven’t received any other updates yet; they haven’t had her back there for nearly long enough to mend her properly yet.” 

“Mary, let’s go home, you need to change clothes and get cleaned up.”

“I’m not leaving her.” 

“John, don’t worry. I can have someone fetch something for Mary if you would like. I’m going to go to the nurse’s station and let them know to keep us informed.” 

John let Mycroft make the arrangements for getting Mary’s things, and because of their connection to the hospital, Mary was allowed to use the employee shower facilities to clean up. 

As she showered, she scrubbed and scrubbed, but could not erase the knowledge she actually had. Mary had not told the men much at all. It was apparent that, in the hours that Moriarty and his two accomplices had Barbary, that more than just a serious beating took place. Mary had no idea what kind of man Torrance was, but he was running with men like Moriarty and Moran so that didn’t say much for him. But Moriarty and Moran were both complete psychopaths. The paramedics told her, once Barbary had lost consciousness that there was evidence of sexual activity; they would know more after the doctors had taken care of her and tests had been run. It was highly unlikely that Moriarty had taken part in that at least but, you could never be sure really, because he was so fluid in his inclinations. Without a doubt The Butcher had something to do with it. Moran was notorious; almost everybody that ever heard his name would quake in fear. Barbary may have been a loose cannon at times, but even she kept her distance from Moran at all times. 

Mary could only wonder what had led Barbary to being taken by Moran this way; she made up her mind to ask her as soon as she was awake and able to handle questions. 

Once she was squeaky clean, or as close to it as she could get in one day, Mary dressed and headed out to the waiting room with the others. In the meantime there was an update on Barbary; there had been some internal bleeding, mostly from being kicked hard repetitively. Some of the kicks had landed near her ribs, breaking a couple causing at least one of them to puncture a lung. That had been fixed; her lung was seen to. They had managed to stop the external bleeding; there had been cuts made with a sharp serrated blade down most of the length of the left side of her torso. Some of the fingers on both hands had been broken and were reset. Barbary also had a fractured right clavicle. There was some bruising along the bottom jaw line. There was a gash near her left temple. Barbary had presumably put up one hell of a fight even though she was heavily drugged and quite intoxicated. And the nurse confirmed that the doctor had found evidence of sexual assault. The nurse said that the doctor was almost finished stitching Barbary and cleaning her up, then she would be sent to a private room immediately to be made as comfortable as possible while she recovered.

Mary knew to expect that, the paramedics had said as much, but it was still hard to hear; she had to turn to look out the window of the waiting room. She had to keep her composure while the nurse spoke to everybody else. As soon as the nurse left the group, Mary turned on Mycroft and gave him hell. 

“I told you to take her off of this assignment, but you wouldn’t listen. I told you this might happen. This assignment is going to kill her. It nearly did tonight. When will enough be enough for you?”

“Mary…” 

“No John, don’t try to placate me. I’m sick of this. Twenty-five years Mycroft. Think about that. Yes, you saved her life, and she’s been paying for it ever since. But, what I can’t figure out….Aside from the usual reasons, why would Barbary be in that pub drinking herself half to death in the first place?”

Sherlock stepped forward, ‘I believe that I may be able to explain that….”


End file.
